Ummm, ban all the things isn't my first approach. Also, the major cause of the effed up distribution is how stake was originally distributed and then stake weighted inflation. The combination of both made this place Ben Bernake's wet dream.
It's not bid bots fault.
You're absolutely correct on all counts. My stance on bots isn't based on their economic effects on Steemit, but rather the philosophical and political reality that bots voting equates humans to things.
That being said, while bots aren't the cause of the problems on Steemit, I observe that neither have they fixed it, and they are become a primary vector for concentrating wealth here - despite efforts to use them to better distribute wealth.
Also, I have noted that self, paid, or automated votes aren't curation, but rather promotion. Have you thoughts on this?
As I recall, you were integrally involved in the recent work @stellabelle and @fulltimegeek undertook to delegate SP to human curators. I suspect this indicates you do have an interest in human curation.
I belatedly realize that much of your work has related to bots and promotion, and you may feel I disparage that. I do not. I think your direct experience and efforts will inform your insight into these issues, and that is highly valuable.
I have long advocated a different solution, and have never said that solutions others have undertaken were somehow malicious. I am confident you are motivated strongly by a desire to benefit the community, and that the valuable experience you have gained in your work to date here will only contribute to greater success henceforth, regardless of how you proceed.
This is why you retain my proxy. My confidence and faith in you is greater than that I have in any other Steemer (not even pandering. It's just true). Even in the unlikely event that you and others all agree to completely adopt all my proposals here, you and MSP will but benefit, and grow stronger, particularly as your experience provides specific valuable insight on these issues.
Edison learned 999 ways how not to make a lightbulb, and considered each attempt a valuable benefit to his research. I know you also do the same - unless you are jaded by too many too easy successes! =p
In any case, I point out that my proxy concretely demonstrates my continued and enduring confidence that you are, and will, do what you believe is the right thing, and further that I am certain you effectively benefit the community more than any other I could support, despite my philosophical disagreement.
Thanks!
Well said.
My 2 cents is that Bots will not go away (its the future so they're here to stay)
but we can minimize their effects.
Also, I am against ANYTHING that remotely looks like Advertising in any way.
That's essentially what big whales have become... Giant ADVERTISEMENTS.
And some of the Ads say "Stay Away from SteemIt!"
It's a conundrum that promotional efforts on Steemit are causing users to leave. While such promotional efforts aren't exerted outside Steemit, so can't be used to attract users to the platform, at least until SMT's come online, the reality is that votebots, which folks use to improve their rewards, are causing rewards to be concentrated more, rather than less.
@bitopia has posted a great idea to improve the promotions feature of Steemit, which could replace votebots - but not the income bots produce for substantial stakeholders.
As many investments require patience, it may be that stakeholders in Steem need to forego immediate profits in order to generate capital gains.
I think this is pretty obvious, from the data. It is difficult to say when it's your ducats on the line, but cognitive dissonance has never improved an investor's ability to profit. Either user retention improves dramatically, which requires several orders of magnitude of improvement in distribution, which requires whales' dilution of their stakes, or the consequences will be diminution of those stakes, in terms of value relative to other currency.
Were you to ask me would I rather have $100 which was enough to buy an ice cream cone, or $1 which could buy two, I'd take the dollar. The problem isn't academic for substantial stakeholders here, and either the 38 yachts that need the fleet of leaky skiffs to bring them content begin to fix those skiffs, or they will quit getting content from the skiffs that sink or are abandoned (my rising tide floats all boats analogy).
Thanks!