You're trying to police a product that might get purchased when there are other options available.
Kinda like those gas stations who hike their price at highway exits. Those bastards. Those poor shmucks who are buying gas at those evil gas stations just taking advantage of them.
Some of those people know the can get a better price but they have their reasons for buying. Some of them just want to gas because it fits their schedule better. Some of them don't want to run out of gas getting to the next gas station, so they're just buying $5s worth. Some of them just don't care what it costs because their time is worth so much it makes no difference.
It's the buyer's responsibility to use due diligence to see if the price their paying is the best price for the product their buying. And besides, I think the scenario would be rare, not "loads of unhappy users" like you're suggesting.
I'm talking about hypotheticals here since this particular product has been rode out on a rail, but I can imagine a situation where someone wants an account and the free option is unavailable. They also have no crypto at all, and no idea how to get any anytime soon. Or, they know how to get crypto, but find the process too invasive.
- They see the Local Bitcoin option and don't like the idea of meeting a stranger in a dark alley.
- They see the Coinbase option and don't like the idea of scanning their ID and handing it over.
- They see the VirWox option only to find out that it'll take weeks to build up a reputation with them in order to buy crypto. Or, they don't get the process of buying unrelated game credits to then trade for Bitcoin.
- There's no Bitcoin ATMs near them.
- They don't have $100,000 to open a Gemini account.
At this point, $50 sounds like a pretty good deal.
"It's the buyer's responsibility to use due diligence to see if the price their paying is the best price for the product their buying."
Ultimately, the most important point. Not using such a service would have likely solved the problem, and if it survivied, well...the market has spoken.
However, the desire to hold witnesses to a higher standard may not be off base here. Even if that standard is simply "enough knowledge about Steemit to have known about anon steem in the first place, or to look for it, before trying to create one."
I'm a minnow with ~3000 SP in my account, I could create 500 accounts with $6 delegations, without asking for any profit in return. How's that for a good deal? If I was reaping thousands of rewards a month, I would even create those accounts by giving away the damn $6 without delegating, because I care about the users. Jerry could easily do the same thing with his super stake and gain a LOAD of respect and love, but why do that if he can ask for $50 a pop? That's a $25,000 enterprise (cost/profit/whatever you want to call it), vs my humble $3,000 idea. That's what greed is, combined with a lack of understanding how the account creation works on Steem.
"That's what greed is, combined with a lack of understanding how the account creation works on Steem."
The logical extension of your attack on greed here is communism.
BUT, and it's a big but, if you want to hold Witnesses to a higher standard (ie, it's OK to attack them in a populist fashion because...communist reasons) then I guess I could be sold on that. Witness is a very important and lucrative position.
Incidentally, Jerry's the only witness I know of pledging such a large portion of his (potential) block rewards away.
Perhaps we could ask Jerry to re-direct those block rewards to something other than marketing? Hypothetically, do you think that would be helpful and represent progress?
Exposing a scam is not communism. Although that pledge might seem noble, I have doubts about its honesty, in retrospect of his past actions.
It's not a scam. You just don't like the price. A scam would be if he took your money and did not deliver the promised account.
Your position would get stronger if you replaced scam with something like "scheme, plan, ploy" etc.
Further:
"Fraud is generally defined in the law as an intentional misrepresentation of material existing fact"
You can't prove intent. He has a plausible (but arguably dumb) explanation for not knowing that jives with the facts. He would walk on fraud charges.
In fact, he wouldn't even be indicted, or have a warrant issued, or arrested. So he wouldn't need to walk out of anywhere.
"Exposing a scam is not communism."
Attacking people for selling a service because someone else does it for free is basically some sort of weird Marxist whataboutism, so yeah, we're in Commie territory there.
"Although that pledge might seem noble, I have doubts about its honesty, in retrospect of his past actions."
This is a fair concern to have. I say we see if it's genuine. It would be like having a community witness, with the rewards going to help everyone indirectly.
Witness votes have no cooldown, after all, we can vote him out very quickly.
Would you feel better if he put some Steem into escrow to make good on this for the first few blocks/days/weeks?
Wait a minute, is he paying you to defend him? You sound like a lawyer 😄
I don't know if any of my replies made it to the block-chain (it says 2 replies, but it loads none?)...
I guess I'll take this as a compliment.
But, I am a lawyer, but Jerry has no affiliation with me beyond the 3 Witness posts and the fact that I met him at his Steemit Meetup.
"defend him"
I don't think it's fair to call a skeptical viewpoint me "lawyering" for Jerry. Nobody has proven he had malicious intent to deceive, and I think anyone who isn't being emotional seems to realize that other explanations are at least worth considering.
Releasing a dumb, overpriced service and ignorance of the alternatives appear to be his only (proven) crime here. Given his witness campaign is based almost entirely on his "marketing" value, this doesn't seem like enough to run him out of town on a donkey yet.
Not only his past actions on steemit but his past actions on other platforms that have seen him expelled.
That bastard!
I so wish we weren't talking about a potential witness, because then I'd just post some sort of "burn" or "snap" meme here. You eloquently and concisely made excellent points.
However, a community desire to hold a witness to higher standard is probably not just merited but recommended. Capitalism may not be sufficient explanation for the actions of one in a "public position" such as witness.
Food for thought. These comments feel like the community trying to determine how high those standards should really be.
I've always argued that Jerry is a special witness that has more mainstream appeal. For the marketing potential he has (which, I can't say for sure how much it is) it may be worth stretching some standards. I couldn't say.
To me, the only purpose of a witness is to keep STEEM Power from being undermined. I'm trying to understand what salient issue he has violated by offering a high-priced, slapped-together product.
" I'm trying to understand what salient issue he has violated by offering a high-priced, slapped-together product."
It seems to me that the community (rightly or wrongly, but I'm leaning towards rightly if my opinion matters) places higher standards on witnesses or aspiring witnesses than "normal" community members.
Jerry has really offended this sensibility since there seems to be an unwritten rule that witnesses must also be rather technical, and as a fairly new witness, he "dumbly" made a service much crappier than one he had already posted my "ghostwritten" work on, thus making it difficult optics for him to deny knowing about it or claim he forgot.
Further, this is not his first time making a mistake in this or other crypto communities, as he will freely admit.
I think those trying to run him off the platform are being short-sighted and do not appreciate the possible diversity Jerry could bring as a marketing-only witness that pledged away almost all of his block rewards. I am willing to apply different standards to different witnesses; it only makes sense to judge a witness on their strengths and Jerry's isn't tech.
He'd give back more than this stupid account service idea ever could have made, even if it was a wildly successful malicious scam as some of his detractors seem to think it was intended to be, before his first month of witnessing was done in block rewards alone.
That's me. In order to buy bitcoins they now want me to scan my document id and upload it to their servers. They said they would keep the bitcoins in cold storage but they didn't say they would put the documents to an offline location. I no longer convert fiat to crypto.
Honestly, a year ago when I joined I would have scoffed at paying $50 for a Steemit account to a website but right now, it would have paid off.
On the other hand, the idea of Steemit is "no cost to participate." Growing the platform with real users is good for the platform and the token. If I make a post on how I will verify new users and on-board them with the Steem-backed-dollars I get from the post, do you think I would make enough to on-board anyone from that post?