Trust me when I say that I hear you about the shine wearing off on this platform. I came here with great expectations - not about becoming rich, but about being part of a community that truly understands how much most other platforms are complete trash. I was hoping for this community to reward actual content creators and visionaries. I didn't expect to see so many of the "founders" and "investors" gaming (read: scamming) the platform for their own personal benefit.

I have posted about some of these scammers and the sham accounts associated with them, but nobody seems to care. Anyone with the power to stop it won't stop it. Those who were behind the accounts are still upvoting them with impunity. The rest of the community is obviously powerless to stop it or just doesn't want to get involved for fear of retaliation - which is a horrible thing to see.

Regarding the individual you referred to in your post - I agree. It's exactly the wrong message to send to both the internal community here and potential users and investors. Con artists and charlatans shouldn't be rewarded for "shit-posting." Yet here they are, lining their pockets in another way. This time, taking away from the potential rewards for those who are honest, respectable, knowledgeable content creators on a platform that was allegedly designed for them. It really is sad, given the potential of this entire concept.

I still have hope that many of these things can be corrected, but every passing day leaves me with a sick feeling in my gut that it won't be addressed and fixed in time. The crypto world moves very quickly and reputations rise and fall in very short spans. Steem/Steemit didn't have the greatest repuation to start with, so it won't take much for it to be permanently tarnished. I really do hope that I'm wrong about this, but there are very few "whales" who seem interested enough to stop with their BS sham accounts and curation habits. It also doesn't help that they continually dump Steem on the markets while there are many problems with the platform overall - including user retention, a general lack of UI development, questionable trending posts, and the whole issue of pre-mining.

I would love nothing more than to see the community express their outrage for some of the blatant BS. However, it seems that too many people are only interested in short-term rewards and reputation than long-term health and success of the platform and currency. As long as that is the case, we will likely have neither monetary gains nor a healthy, thriving content creation community. Please, Steemit community - prove me wrong about any or all of this. Not with your words in response to this comment, but in your actions on this platform. That's what matters.