Tim,

I fully believe your intentions and goals are good, but the literal outcome, both big and small picture, will be to reduce the rewards that are allocated towards creators, and put Curators on the same compensatory playing field with Creators, full stop. This is an unacceptable reorientation of the rewards system.

Ask yourself: why is it that people go on doing this curation function for free on Facebook and Twitter - and every other free social network before them - and yet for some reason we have to financially incentivize the same behavior on Steem? It's not because of rewards allocations are misaligned, but because the system is idiot proof and shareable in the former and not on Steem. That's it! If the top 20 witnesses pooled their efforts to fix that singular problem, things would dramatically change on this platform. Instead, you're wringing your hands about figuring out how to pay people for the same damn thing people do on other platforms because the refuse to do it here. Does that make any sense to you at all? Because it doesn't make sense for 100% of everyone I've ever gotten to get an account who have quit. They all give the same reason. They love the idea, but hate the execution of Steem. It's confusing and they aren't allowed to vote and share enough upon their initial exploration of the platform. They don't have time to learn it and get frustrated by the most basic of functions.

For the love of all that is good on the platform, stop thinking in economic terms for a moment and consider what regular folks want out of a platform. They want it to be easy. They want it to be fun. They want to be able to choose their own experience. They don't have time to learn what hardcore enthusiasts like ourselves take the time to learn and what the ins and outs of their economic rewards are going to be. You need to invert your priorities.

As an anecdotal point of evidence, consider what I do for a living. I make movies and TV. I regularly screen my work and we regularly take feedback from fans of the TV show I'm on to better their experience. Sometimes you have to know when to say that the audience is wrong, but they often aren't. When someone tells me that the end of my film made them feel confused, I know that something is WRONG and I do my best to fix it within reason. When the audience of my TV show say, "we hate this" we do our best to address what they want within reason.

The same goes for social media. People regularly tell me what they HATE about Steem and what they love. I've raised this issue before with others, but what you're proposing here is literally missing the target as derived from real feedback from real people who can't execute because of the way the user experience is designed. Your solution to this "lack of curation problem", is to diminish creator rewards? Now you're fucking with MY user experience... and my money... and the principle of the matter. I can't tell you how infuriating this proposal is.

Focus on user experience, and user experience alone, and stop fucking with the rewards system. Make the experience effortless for newbies and the curation will come, just like on the platforms where people spend hours a day for free.