Thanks for the update @ausbitbank-- That's certainly a hefty schedule you keep, so I totally grok the "not sleeping before 4am" bit. You already have my witness vote.
I'm not sure about the whole "paying for upvotes" thing... from where I am sitting, it mostly looks like a strange "tax on hapless minnows." Sure, "it's a free country" and all that good stuff... but let's say the average person pays 2 SBD for some booster, randowhale or whatever vote... so they get an initial $4.00 increase in payout... which declines to $2.50 by the time payout hits; then 20% goes to curation... at the end of which they are back to $2, while someone with a lot of SP is now 2 SBD better off. Am I missing something here?
The influx of newcomers who engage in extensive copy-pasta concerns me a bit... some of it (in comments) is so blatant it's mindnumbing. And it's only going to get worse, as Steemit builds a reputation in certain circles (Mostly the "How To Make Money Online By Clicking Buttons" crowd and a zillion Mechanical Turkers) as a place where you can get free cash.
They are not doing anything "illegal," as such... but the approach is extremely short term/short sighted and has the potential to devastate the Steemit platform in the long term. I used to think I would never flag anything except outright abusive behavior... but I have started flagging a few. I'm sorry-- free speech and anti-censorhip notwithstanding-- but posting the same "great post, you deserve my upvote, please follow me back and upvote me" pasted to 300 comments a day does not add value of ANY sort... it just adds "dust" to the blockchain.
Of course, that's just my OPINION....