Well said!! I feel the same way. I am one of those 'nice' people that doesn't want to downvote due to 'causing negative behavior.' Anytime I have downvoted (which has been for legitmate reasons) I have been retaliated against. I am sorry but an appics post with just a picture should not be getting a $15.00 payout. I understand that a larger portion of upvotes are from the communities and trails that one is involved with. As much is it my right to downvote as I see fit, it is as much as someone's right to downvote on a whim. Not having a SP at stake for downvoting is a mistake. It should absolutely affect your VP.
As you know and many don't I am one of the judges for @pifc Pay It Forward Curation Contest. I have been involved with since the day it started. It takes time and energy to create these posts as many of us know. We do this because it is one the best ways to support the community. This is where #newsteem has been wonderful. Getting a bit more for curation helps immensely and rewards you a bit more for the work. Using SBI is by far the best option.
I am essentially locking up that STEEM away from the open market to provide long-term support to another account that is likely to be smaller than me.
This says it all. Using SBI as a reward you are investing in someone. Granted it may take some time to equal, however it will end up giving much more in the long term. I think of it as starting a savings account for someone. You put $1 in. It collects interest, you add more and get more interest. Over time that $1 will become more (I know very simplistic) That is where I fail to understand why someone would have such a vendetta against this process. I am guessing because they didn't think of it first? They were caught abusing the system?
Bidbots to me are the bane of Steem. Yet who am I to tell someone how to invest their money? If that is what floats your boat then have at it. The one thing I have noticed and I don't know if it is related or not, but the value of Steem has dropped significantly during this time zero tolerance of bidbots.
I was advocating a SP stake... so there would be stake risk, not just a drop in Voting Power... but you would also have to back with some actual SP/Steem. This is in keeping with other consensus protocols that employ a loss of stake for bad behaviour (bad or rogue block production).
I'm not sure that it was only related to that... but if it was, there would be only certain types of accounts that would have been selling... and those are ones that we could do without!