The money that was mined before Steemit even existed, as most Steem was, isn't from investors, but from those that were 'insiders' and who were able to control the code that permitted mining.
There are investors in Steem, like @snowflake, for example, who did not mine their large stakes in Steem.
Most of the Steem in existence today, isn't doled out as upvotes, as upvotes don't draw from your personal holdings, but rather the rewards pool, was mined before Steemit even existed. The value of your upvote is BASED on your holdings, but does not draw on them.
Steem is not produced by upvotes. Votes merely disburse the Steem that is created otherwise, through a different mechanism, and supplied to the rewards pool.
For this reason, when @mindhunter buys votes from @snowflake, he draws down the rewards pool from which we all are paid rewards, in proportion to the value of the upvotes we receive.
In other words, those scams mean more for the scammers, and less for the rest of the authors. They get more Steem, and we get less, because they draw down the pool and leave less in it for us to split.
I know all of this. You also misunderstood some stuff. If no investors ever bought any Steem then the price of Steem would be 0$. The price of Steem comes from investors.
I could re-start a Bitcoin blockchain from 0, if nobody mine any, no matter if I hold thousands of them, they will be worth 0$.
I know about the reward pool and how it work. I was here in May of 2016 and I've been spending 40 hours a week on Steem ever since...
No investors will buy any Steem unless Steemit will grow, so the platform needs to be able to resist scams.
Satoshi did exactly that, and whoever he/they is, he's got a lot of BTC now. There are no 'dividends' from hodling BTC, and no use case beyond it's original novelty, unlike Steem, which is driven by Steemit.
I know you are one of the old guard. I know you are dedicated to making Steemit become a platform capable of crushing Fakebook. I don't know why you consider my comment to be aimed at ONLY you, as my response to you was intended to extend the information to the wider audience that will read them here.
I just think that making sure that people have the information I included will help them to understand better how Steemit works. Most people, I think, still don't know that the votes they receive don't come out of the upvoters personal holdings, but out of the rewards pool, and that's an important distinction - particularly as vote sellers aren't selling their money, but the common resource we all depend on for rewards.
Good points.
I don't consider myself from the old guard but more like an early adopter.
Excellent post, thank you for this explanation.
Best easy explanation for how the reward pool works yet and very clearly defines how high powered self-voting decreases others' rewards (even if it is only a few cents from each user, the impact across the board is significant). And I think the investor issue is what should be pushing for a solution here, people don't invest in companies where they know abusing the company's infrastructure is tolerated, unless they plan on abusing it as well.
I reckon that those investors worth their salt understand the difference between cashflow now, and potential capital gains, particularly as regards a platform that seems to be so rife with such 'features'.
Cash, as they say, is King.