the whole system going into slow-mo mode on second day because un-updated witnesses crashed - yeah, that is clusterfuck.
lead developer fixed the system and 2 days later, witnesses catched up with all the unconfirmed transactions and everything ran smoother than before, record amount of people signed up. not a clusterfuck anymore.
some found that rewards for lower reputations were too high, so they were able to make it profitable business by upvoting newly created accounts. Byteball changed rewards for lower tiers - not a clusterfuck, people were warned in first post that rewards could change for lower tiers.
some built tools that monitored who were sending who funds that looked similar to attestation fee and then they send also a more accurate amount to hi-jack the referral. Byteball changed the referral to link only, most people said it fixed the problem - not a clusterfuck.
Conclusion: nearly 50k Steem users got free cryptocurrency during last 2 weeks, some spent it to buy more Steem, some spent it to upvote their reputation, some even bought lunch with it. Lot of low quality posts were written how to get the airdrop, but some good quality posts too about features of Byteball. Some even teaching Steemians how to use Bittrex because apparently many on Steemit doesn't even know. Your post is good too, just way too critical.
Also, many people with less than 50 reputation got their reward before they were lowered. Those rich Steemians who signed up most users probably won most and also missed the most of the rewards too because referral hi-jacking, so I would not say that it has been unfair for smaller Steemians.
I do think we cross-pollinated some user base there. And that is healthy. Even with all the spam going on.
Depends, what is exactly a clusterfuck here?
Conclusion: nearly 50k Steem users got free cryptocurrency during last 2 weeks, some spent it to buy more Steem, some spent it to upvote their reputation, some even bought lunch with it. Lot of low quality posts were written how to get the airdrop, but some good quality posts too about features of Byteball. Some even teaching Steemians how to use Bittrex because apparently many on Steemit doesn't even know. Your post is good too, just way too critical.
So, I guess it can be actually called success. Referral with transaction is not perfect, neither is the link referral, but transaction referral showcased the newcommers that you can request payment from chat on Byteball and transactions are fast.
Also, many people with less than 50 reputation got their reward before they were lowered. Those rich Steemians who signed up most users probably won most and also missed the most of the rewards too because referral hi-jacking, so I would not say that it has been unfair for smaller Steemians.