Good points! Personally I value quality content completely over rewards. Although myself I sometimes wonder if Steemit actually rewards the best content, I do see that many many many good Steemians put in several hours daily in manually or "humannually" curating content. I think they deserve more credit than what they are getting.
I think that with good content and perseverence, reward will follow eventually and inevitably. But in the meantime, the platform will see every kind of behavior that is rewarded in the short term.
And yes, I will admit, I do check things like Rep, SP and qty of followers before I follow, simply because people with larger stakes can make a bigger difference and have a bigger impact on things here currently.
Check things like Rep, Sp and Qty of followers before follow somebody because of their stakes uhmm, and what about those starting great participants and Talented enthusiasts without numbers over those standards. Those with larger stakes look at larger stakes steemians´contents, not all of them, I know, but most of them do.
I like to think that with great power comes great responsibility. My little SP will not do very much for the young talented newcomers. I also do not have the time to check all their posts daily by myself. That's why delegated a big portion of my SP to minnowsupport, who support minnows and also reward great content. I check their weekly summary for talented newcomers and if there is one that is really interesting I will certainly follow.
Those with larger stakes have a bigger responsibility. They have the power to really influence and reward great content. When they do, the platform as a whole becomes more valuable. When they reward big within a select group of known old comrades or an even more select group like, just themselves, Steemit as a community suffers a little bit.
But I have the impression that for the most part, with few exceptions, the whales in this community are very supportive of young talent, they encourage it, they support it and they foster it, because they know it's great content that will push Steem to great heights.
Amen fitzy. I do appreciate the sentiment of this topic post. We live in a world ruled in large part by
pure greed. 'Social media' / technology may lead to our downfall as a species due to its inherent inclination to exploit the shortfalls of human nature to lean into self aggrandizement. One can only hope that this is the start of a 'social media' type that supercedes it all and coalesces to allow good to triumph over evil...
I can agree with a lot of what you said. @fitzgibbon
Yes, people with large stakes can make a bigger difference but so can a group of users that come together to make a difference.