What is Really Causing Steem to Crash and Burn?

Over the last few months, many users of the Steem blockchain have been passionately arguing about what has caused Steem's price to drop, and what will cause it to go back up. I have tried to avoid controversial topics for a while now, but I feel I need to voice my opinion in a respectful manner.

What I believe caused the price to drop

Many people say that new users are upset with curation bots, or upset that whales have more of an influence than them. I can tell you for certain why they are really upset. New users decide to leave because they post their first article, and it is ignored by a large portion of the community because they are focused on articles about how we should ban whales from voting (to get new users), or how we need to remove curation rewards (to get new users). And while everyone focuses on that, the new user views the trending page, sees that every other article is about Steemit (which they don't understand), and decides to leave because they get the impression that only articles about Steemit do well. 

This in turn leads to less people being interested in steem, causing the price to plummet. 

Here is an example of someone interested in joining, who decided not to when they saw an article about steem.

What is the solution?

Part of the reason I am so upset about these peoples' ideas is they're trying to manipulate the system by telling people what they can and can't do. I don't want to say "DON'T VOTE FOR ANY ARTICLES ABOUT STEEMIT, THEY'RE EVIL!!" because that is basically saying I am the only one here with a brain. Instead, I would recommend that we create a category in which articles can still make a good deal of money, it's just they don't trend (I recommend suggestionsforsteemit or sfs). That way, when new users come they see music posts, or art posts, or posts about cooking, or anything but steemit. 

I would also recommend making a global tutorial that teaches the basics of steemit to new users, so that they don't feel alone and intimidated right away. I have had 4 friends join, of which none have posted because they don't know 1. What to post about, and 2. How to post about it. Removing steemit articles from the trending page eliminates problem 1, and making a guide eliminates problem 2.

My View

Now, on the topic of removing a whale's ability to vote. How would you feel if you worked your butt off to make 700 thousand dollars, and someone comes along and says, oh by the way you can't use/invest that money? It's the same thing here, many users say "All they had to do is click a button and they made 100s of thousands of dollars. It took my father a week to set up our first miner, even using a guide on how to do it. When Steem first came out there was no guide, the whales had to figure out how to mine by reading the code. That is a lot harder than pushing a button, it takes years to learn to read code fluently, and years more to learn to interpret it fluently. 

Personally, if I were a whale, and they made it so I couldn't vote, I'd power down and switch to a crypto currency in which I'd actually be able to invest. If enough whales did that, Steem would CRASH and BURN. 

Curating vs. Voting

Curating and voting are two distinctly different processes. Voting gives information. Curation processes it. If all of the voting synchronizes, then a curation reward is given to those who presented the information early. 

Steemit has an imbalance of authors:readers, so it is impossible for every author to be given a reward for quality based only on the readers' opinions. This is why many users choose to use bots, to give out rewards on a larger scale, for content they want to see more of. Bots make it so that more authors are rewarded. Many bot owners review, categories and anticipate quality content based on patterns that they see (i.e. Who's the author? What's their reputation? What words generally go with a successful article?) Without these bots, it would be impossible to carefully read all of the articles that bots vote on, and give it a fair reward. The community helps to show bot programmers what is popular and what isn't, by voting on articles after bots, creating a larger reward (more incentive to vote on similar content. To ban bots, would be to take away diversity in the authors rewarded by bots. 

I find it funny when people argue that they can sit at their computer voting all day when bots are banned, and they have 95% of their voting power. 

Canning curation rewards would be a mistake because of many people earn their Steem through curation, and would likely leave the platform if they couldn't anymore. (Some people don't like to write, but they like to read). Also, to state that people will vote without curation rewards is silly. The only reason why they use Steemit, and why it has an edge over Facebook or Instagram, is they are paid. Take that incentive away, and they won't use Steemit anymore. I'm sorry, but it's not as easy to use, not as aesthetically pleasing, and not many people use it. If they're not paid, they won't use it anymore. 

Carl Marx thought that people will work because they love it. My response is No they won't, they have nothing to gain, and they can work somewhere else where it's easier to work, and they have friends working there. 

Thanks for reading this! I am not going to write about this topic anymore, but I felt I should get this off of my chest. Anyway, as always feedback is appreciated, and see you later!

Also remember to check for: My weekly 7 post, [Something else will eventually go into this space]!