RE: Some Lessons from Bellyrub Scam
One bad apple is ruining for all of us. To me a reputation of 69 or above is highly sucessful on steemit. One can not get that high without a lot of upvotes from their peers. You could not buy that kind of reputation instantaneously either.
The high SP is suppose to mean the steemian is loyal to the crypto and platform. So many accounts have transferred out steems on to bittrex or poloneix but nothing against them. It is just that the ones who kept them in the platform is benefiting all who use it rather than taking it out of the reward pool.
Besides these points I totally agree with everything else you say. Greed will blind us of common sense all the time. It is human nature to want to go the easy way out. Yet want to maximize the experience/reward.
The age of steemit I think is still in its infancy and down the road when there are more members the strongest ones will be the ones that are the most honest and loyal to one another and to themselves.
The high reputation, a whale rank, a witness status and a long haul could bring in a good level of trust and prestige among this community and mostly it's true too. But what I mean to convey is that these parameters are not enough to trust your money or anything of value to these accounts. This scam happened despite of all these credentials. In our deals, we should be wary of that one bad apple and it's not easy to identify for which one is that!