RE: BlockTrades beginning development of Steem Proposal System
it is not true that the only means of funding SPS is by reallocating extant rewards
I never claimed that unconditionally, however I did predict that proposing to increase inflation is going to be a hard no. Perhaps my prediction could be wrong, but that aside, apart from increasing the inflation (and donations, which are sufficiently discussed elsewhere in this thread, though mostly not by me), the only way to fund a SPS is indeed reallocate rewards.
I'm well aware of the issues with bid bots etc. Suffice it to say I disagree, nearly entirely, with your analysis of said situation. However, I do not view this thread as the ideal venue to address such disagreement.
Without rewards Steem would have no value
This sort of extremist position (likewise elsewhere I have seen you claim that without content it would have "no value") is not only clearly wrong, but it is unhelpful. It is clearly wrong because there are hundreds if not thousands of blockchains with no content and no rewards, often clearly inferior to Steem in other ways, which nevertheless have value. Indeed some of them (DOGE being the favorite example of @steemed) have far less or nothing going for them yet have more value than Steem. There are numerous things which give a blockchain value, not just the one or two you claim, and I would suggest that if you actually believe this statement that you take some time to learn a bit more about the marketplaces, and if you don't that you engage in a more sincere and thoughtful manner.
In case it is not clear, I'm not suggesting that rewards and content contribute no value to Steem, only that it isn't ALL of the value.
You note that most of the inflation is paid out to authors, but neglect that much of that buys votes from rent seeking bid bots
I don't neglect it, nor even disagree with it. My conclusion from the observation is quite different from yours, however. Since content rewards are more dysfunctional and less effective than we might ideally prefer, and a large portion of the budget allocated there is not ending up where intended, we should spend less on them, not more. If and when there are improvements made (including via a proposal and budgeting system to pay for this work) to address the game theory failures that give rise to vote selling, self voting, bid bots, etc., then perhaps we may wish to reallocate more rewards back to a better-functioning system.
C'mon. Quit pretending you don't say what you say.
I take many absolutist positions because they're absolutely true. 1+1=2. Every single time. Without content, Steem would have no value. No investment would occur. Full stop. Mic drop.
Such positions aren't useful to you, because you seek to perpetuate your rentier income, and extracting author rewards will enable you to offshore development expenses from being directly funded by stake AS IT CURRENTLY IS.
And there it is. 'Rent seeking curation is degrading content quality, so let's decrease rewards to authors that don't rent stake even more, so more rentier income is able to be hoarded by (((me))).'
Pardon me if I disagree, and want to end the problem, rather than make it worse.
"unconditionally"
"apart from increasing the inflation (and donations, which are sufficiently discussed elsewhere in this thread, though mostly not by me),"
For someone who claims to make statements that are absolutely true and claims to be dropping mics, you're awfully careless when it comes to facts and logic (and quoting accurately).
I can 100% prove this wrong for the simple reason that even without content, at some price i would invest in it. I can entirely guarantee it would not have no value. You do not understand how cryptocurrency markets work.
Though I'm confident enough that I wouldn't be the only one this is merely proof that your absolutist statement is wrong and not an estimate of what its value would be. I suspect a lot higher than due to my investment alone.
Furthermore without author rewards it would also still have content, just as countless other user-contributed content platforms have content without rewards.