I got some $ sitting in Coinbase ready to move into crypto once the bleeding stops. Two months ago Steem really felt like a sure thing, but then the pool rape, Haejin nonsense, and Bidbot proliferation happened and I'm just not sure if I should invest more or wait to see what happens when Dan decides to try and compete on the EOS platform.

Here's the thing, it's easier to cheat than it is to punish cheating. People don't like authority until they need it to nail someone who is cheating them. To cheat, all I have to do is do it. To punish cheating, someone needs to see it, take action against it or report it to someone with authority to, and hope that we have enough authority to punish the cheating at a level that prevents it in the future, or even just enough to make it not worth their attempt to do so.

Steem would work if rep actually mattered and flagging wasn't taboo here so we could actually crowd mod. But as it stands, cheating wins because there is almost no incentive not to. I can buy votes and circle jerk all day because you probably won't even see me do it, and if you do, you probably can't do much about it. At the end of the day, a very average steemian such as myself just wants to have positive interactions with people, not wade into the shitposts and start flagging. Modding is WORK. Expecting decentralized modding to be effective is pretty foolish.