The interesting thing is I arrive at the same general choice of action from a completely different vector. I (almost always) won't use my borrowed VP or vote bots to push my comments to the top because
I generally don't feel convinced it is worthy of being placed so highly. If I did, I wouldn't hesitate to boost it. (I find the "power up enough STEEM to vote to that amount" argument quite spurious. There's a big difference between a small one-time payment and a huge 13-week long vesting commitment. Besides, when you pay a bot you are rewarding a large investor for vesting their STEEM in the first place, not "stealing from" the rewards pool.) How does the myth of organic value persist on STEEM? It has been mostly pay-to-win here ever since I've been here. The problem with expecting people (whales) to be philanthropic is that most humans are still operating at the level of basic survivalistic fear. The idea of a gift economy still makes no sense to most. We have to come to humanity's level to build a system that works for the present but extrapolates to the future.
/ end digressionThe promotional benefits of being at the top of a comment section are usually outweighed by the negatives of being too much in the spotlight.
The entire senseless, guilt-tripping, pitchfork-wielding masses who insist on hypermoralization of what is essentially just neutral algorithms.
It doesn't matter.
Let's say the reward pool is worth one million (it's currently very close to that number currently). Votes are sold and the buyer is to be content with 10% potential profit. How much is the actual reward pool worth now to the majority? That's right. 100k. I see people complaining about a potential 50/50 share of post rewards, but they're content with a 10% cut of the entire reward pool. That's how backwards this place has become and a lot of people have the nerve around here to defend that as well as give financial advice. Governments don't even take 90%....
Anyway. I don't have time for this discussion today. I realize the issues I have fly over most heads here anyway.
I wouldn't say they're necessarily content with it so much as either 1.) unaware 2.) don't know of an easily implementable solution to prevent the automation/selling of votes.
And some explicitly like the way things are now, you're right.
Yep. No problem, I never expect people to reply unless you specifically want to or have the time. These discussions tend to be quite circular anyway, though the optimist in me wants to believe we are getting somewhere by continuously contemplating them.
Or, they have a different vision of what will produce economic prosperity. Though, I will withhold any specific judgements currently as I've not read any of your proposals to improve STEEM.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@nonameslefttouse/turning-rage-into-the-soothing-steem-now-blowing-out-my-butt-as-i-mince-my-words-for-you-the-reader-of-this. Power through that, the included links, the comment sections. It's a deep rabbit hole. I've been yelling at the clouds for nearly a year.