Actually, he came to me and let me know he un-voted you along with his reasoning, and while I told him I didn't want to until you answered his questions first to get the benefit of the doubt, I fully supported his logic. However, you didn't, and your instant assumption he was coerced to "spite un-vote you" is...telling, wholly incorrect, almost martyrish in it's insinuation of personal attack...and a little bit pot-to-kettle, frankly. You didn't answer his question about whether or not being new witnesses who work incredibly hard, both at MSP, and on our own ventures much moreso, is enough for you. You didn't address why you're so mad about people outside of the old guard rising relatively quickly, because in reality, all of our large, moving votes have come in direct correlation to the free tools and scripts and other work that we've pushed out into the Steemit ecosystem with Steemistry.

You are so fixated on the performance of others on the platform and how they generate profit, which is on a sliding scale of importance directly correlated to the reward pool drain. The rampant abuses that drain thousands of dollars a day, the bot accounts racking up thousands of dollars a day, the proliferation of thousands of copy paste shit posts a day — this is where we need to start focusing our efforts as a collective, and part of that is looking at how to make curating good content as lucrative as going out and buying a vote among a million other things. The only way to change that is to get up to the top, and to do that on merit. You seem to be angry with us both for actually rising with verifiable non-MSP work (with no begging or bullshit), but also for NOT making money.

Half your response is about others making money, and why not us?! We donate a number of services both to MSP and other projects. That's our prerogative, because we set out clearly when we started that we would donate to development. Just like we don't charge subscriptions for the stuff we build (and there are competing services who do) we don't begrudge how people choose to make their money on here, provided it doesn't represent a significant imbalance to the reward pool by unethical means like spam and scams — not just because of dirty limericks. (As for lovejuice, I don't really care either way; I just looked, and minnows can afford it, unlike most big bid accounts now. It pays $5 to minnows who contribute, and usually makes less than $2 on each post it paid for. Choose your battles. I made $100 in three posts. Come for me, then.) We are not questing after money; you can look at our wallets and see that clearly and fairly. There are a million roads we could take to get rich which would launch us beyond witnessing and MSP, and they would be shitty and harm the long term viability of Steemit. We don't need to be paid back for donations freely offered. We make them to MSP, and even more frequently, we make them to the Steemit ecosystem overall.

There needs to be competition to build a fatter middle class — and that does mean profit. I'm quite altruistic, but also believe that you need to grow to exert influence, and that both my art and my business work deserve to be paid. That doesn't mean I chase the people donate to in a guilt-trip, or scam the people of a platform I love. It means I put my fucking head down, do the work in ALL of the pots on the stove, and earn it by rising to be a high level witness. It is all deserved, despite your continued passive suggestion we do not. Competition between witnesses, devs, and even Steemians, if you frame it between the bot-nets and shit posters and the people who come here just looking for a chance and something new, is growth. We've done that WITHOUT shilling for money, and asking "what's in it for us."

Pulling some whales into discussion is a step to take towards that, just like we're also encouraging follow-up forums of different groups as well. It makes sense to put those who will talk in front of an audience to prompt them to listen, instead of just blindly up-voting a post full of lies they will never read. I don't understand why you're threatened by trying to gather a group that normally stays out of the light and away from the people who are asking for this. I also don't know why you think that the same thing isn't being prepped for smaller influencers and the smallest users as well, since that's already been addressed. These are the sorts of things that need to happen to get everyone moving, and I'm sorry your giant slew of assumptions has you casting aspersions on my partner. Perhaps you believe he or I don't deserve a voice either?

Last week we started declining any witness post payouts unless it was a tool that killed us with a significant cost out of pocket. People could profit from that by posting about us and our stuff, but that doesn't change our reasoning nor our efforts; please don't bother getting enraged on our behalf about that, either. Whatever true colours you think you see in Jeff, because he and I continue to both work hard for ourselves, Steemit and for other projects — including MSP — in the way we have always promised to...well, I posit you need your eyes checked. Jeff is one of the best Steemians out there, which is why I stand with him and work with him every day.