I spend a lot of time on created. Furthermore, I don't self-vote nor do I use bid bots. I take pride in my work regardless of whether it is recognized or not and believe my voting power is better used on community enrichment. It's okay if you don't think like this but. to understand my mentality, it is crucial

I operate under the principle that I ought to vote on others to increase cooperative value production with a high emphasis on sweat equity which seems to be a long forgotten concept nowadays in the rise of upvote bots and collusion voting / circular voting. I am also an advocate for changes with the system to allow a equal opportunity for authors. I envision a Steem that is a true meritocracy. We're not there yet.

The problem is why work really hard, @danpaulson, when people can just self bid bot their own post to near $20?

You are setting an example for others to follow that's motivated by economized profit over effort. The average user has been conditioned as such. Which is why we have some many issues with low quality, spam, schemes etc. It seems to be getting worse.

You're not wrong to use your stake how you like but that doesn't negate the broader impact hence my advisement. Discerning people look at what you're doing and what Haejin are doing and they are going to be like FTS and go back to FaceBook where they already have a following. What people are doing is increasing the barrier to entry when we ought to be lowering it. People tend to be concerned with short sighted profit.

Don't get me wrong. The system is busted and that's not your fault but you have the ability to do something about it. Instead of dissenting, you can join us and truly make a difference.

A great post about the upvote bots:

https://steemit.com/steem/@trumpman/if-you-use-upvote-services-please-read-these-two-posts