Well this is still misguided criticism....
As a meter of fact smooth is still buying SD at about 7 to 9 % higher than he should .... I cannot know if he indeed made 2% return but the numbers show that if he indeed did, it was a pure luck!!!
What he is actually doing is - reducing the loans of the network using his own stake (while he should leave the witnesses to come up to the right parameters - which are 14-17% discount rate based on the last week/month/3 months price data) and let the network print as much new STeem as is needed.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And yes, this is your right to buy SD at 0.97....0.99 or 1.05. The point is - you will be over paying from your own pocket for SD.
SD is designed to be worth less than a dollar... much less. The last "improvement" (aka witness discounting the price) by @theman simply shifts this discount from appearing in the market price to the network printing more Steem per SD .
This is not a criticism, you maybe guided by your prejudice. I am also doing the conversion, and once I made +7% but yesterday I made -7% due to a huge price drop.
Yes, I will be buying with my own pocket, BECAUSE I got supported by the community financially from the community and I think it is appropriate to spend the money for the community in this tough time. (you may know that witness income was over $60000 and is still over $6000 per month, which is much much greater than server costs and maintenance costs)
We cannot blame a person who does not sacrifice his/her benefits. However, we'd better choose one who gives up a part of(or all of) his/her profits over a person who does not.
sure, as I said* you are free to sacrifice your perceived but unattainable income (unattainable for 104 weeks or so) any way you want/wish.
and yes I am fully aware that witness pay is/was outrageous (reaching millions of dollars per year at one point and a server cost of $100. $100 if you want to be over over over protected) and no one gave a shit ass about this over payment.
And no, you did not get support from the "community" to become a witness ... you got support from @theman (and his 20 friends)
But at the end of the day what really makes me mad is that smart guys like you get sucked up and taking the loss for a bad SBD design. Bad design by full of himself idiotic moron.
But then again in the pyramid realm of BM he will pay you off by being part of the clique in the next project.....