Thanks for your reply @novacadian . When I refer to "we", when speaking about the witness, most times i'm referring to the community (which could mean everyone on steemit.com) or voters of the witness depending on perspective. Either way works for me because that is who supports this witness project besides myself. Other times when I say "we", I'm referring to things that are being developed for STEEM/Steemit i.e. applications, websites, software, etc. Often times I am speaking of my team which currently consists of @thecodex our lead php guy , @chainchoppers (who's a bot but has feelings too), and more recently @afrosteem who is dedicated to resolving racial barriers on the blockchain. At any rate, there should be a team involved when it comes to any of these things including the witness. I believe many before me have become successful witnesses, and are self-branded, but as I learn more about how the technology works, I am starting to see that that decision to use a name instead of an org or a business is probably more so technical than politics. @justinadams has one goal atm. Try to fix the leaky pipes in steem. As it stands, even though I pay for it, the witness is everyone's. It's only written 3 blocks though it missed one due to political warfare on the network and I can assure you not due to any technical incompetency on my part by any means. 3 blocks per day in SP is Hardly enough to cover the witness costs, + seed nodes trust me. Also, any blocks it writes goes into vesting and as you can probably tell, I am very unlikely to power down. If by "team" you mean someone wants to help me cover some of these expenses via donations, then by all means feel free, this shit is real :P 
I'll also mention that I have only made deposits IN to steemit and not out unless they are to power up SP or convert to STEEM or vice versa. I don't feel i'm really asking for anything in return unless you count witness votes, but i'm willing to bet that most people (if they even vote at all or even know how to) have voted or maintain votes for witnesses that are either inactive or have not even posted or voted on anything recently. Maybe that's asking a lot? :D All I'm saying is, and this is to everyone, let me have a fair chance so that we can make this a better place (steemit.com) and make the blockchain itself (STEEM) more stable and reliable so that it can prosper within itself. Then we ALL can actually make some money off of it at some point...maybe?
The Underdog
If there is a Rocky Balboa story to be made on steemit, then @justinadams (yes i speak of myself in the 3rd as well ^_^) is probably a likely candidate. I do intend to prove that I am just as capable (more capable in some respects by my own accord) as the conglomerate currently monopolizing the platform, data resource prioritization, and access to it. As it stands, @justinadams is referred to as "the wimpy witness" simply because I am the weakest one on the totem pole when it comes to SP. I do not have any whale sponsors or any big investors whom I have promised percentages of witness earnings to either which probably explains why I'm not so popular with that particular bunch. On it's face, this IS a true community witness. It just needs more votes (and SP) to be properly represented by the people for which it stands. I've promised to at least give back to the people that voted for the witness, and obviously building nodes is something that is going to help everyone not just voters. I believe community support and involvement is the is the only effective way to build an honest witness. If we build all foundations on equality, then there is no inequality to be compared to as it simply will not exist. That's what we all want right? I like to say, "One of us, one of them". Balance is the key :D
"Do I pay my credit card or pay my witness server?"
Trust me, making 1SP/month doesn't seem worth it right? Why not invest in some mining equipment or hell, I probably could have even invested $1500 In ethereum last month for a decent ROI right? :P But then I look at the people that have showed support and share my concern for the network/currency/blockchain and their belief in it's ability to succeed here. Some of which have represented that respectively by giving one of their witness votes. It shows me that people do care and they are willing to do what it takes to fix some of the issues that we face here technically and socially. These votes were given independently of knowing what I could do or if the things I propose could be reality, but they took a dive anyway, just like I have been since I joined. I don't want to let them down, or myself, so i'm taking that dive too. A lot of people throw terms like "community" and "community based" around without any context whatsoever. If anything, we should prove that making a big difference is not only reserved for the elite , sharks, and whales be it witnessing, running bots, building apps, or running consensus nodes. If that is not the case, then the entire concept has failed already and there is nothing to fix.
So what happens if this doesn't work out? You probably realize by now that I am a quite capable individual. If Steem Forever! doesn't work out, I'll probably have learned a valuable lesson in life at the least and I'll still continue to develop projects though they'll probably be less community centric and more industry based. I would have liked to had entered steemit with dollar signs in my eyes and in my pocket like most people, but the things that I would like to do here will be impossible without a more stable network that is uncontrolled by an oversized few, so we need to take care of that first before we do ANYTHING! That's referring to my team AND myself in that respect, and anyone else who seeks to make a business out of steem. With it's current structure, we must bow to their whims, but not I :P And I'd like to set an example for everyone else as well. I do empathize with your concern for my lack of clarity when I reference "we" in my content's subject matter. I'll try to make a more conscious decision when making those references in the future though. My apologies for this long winded ass response but that was a good question! Don't worry though, I don't even have enough SP to reply at the top of my own post :D
Thanks very much for such a robust reply! My extra witness vote, looking for a home, thought you could use my minnow support. The reason for asking about the 'team' is having recently removed my support from such multi person witness accounts. The reasoning is explained in more detail in a recent blog post:
https://steemit.com/witnesses/@novacadian/my-current-witness-choices
Also was able to spare a 5 SP delegation and still keep my minnowhood. Hope each little bit will help.
Steem on my Brother! 😎
Wow, thanks so much @novacadian . Definitely well appreciated. Reading your post, I see you are very particular about who you give witness votes to and why. Very well done. People need more.. or should I say, better education when it comes to witnesses, what they do, how and why they should vote at all. Thanks again for that SP dude, that was totally unnecessary but very well appreciated.
Just a heads up that @timcliff seems to build his The Reports from the Witnesses posts from the "witness-category" and "witness-update" tags which you do not have in this post.
Thanks for the shout out :). I haven't been posting to my steem account yet (been too busy coding), but will participate in posting stuff soon!