These requests aren’t anything new (except the downvote thing). They have been publicly made for a very long time. Unfortunately, it looks like full linearity is here to stay and there appears to be no desire by our protocol gatekeepers and overlords to adjust the curation split.

For some background on how long I have been “officially” asking for these changes, you can read these posts and some pretty good discussions that ensued as a result, particularly in the second post:

https://steemit.com/steemit/@ats-david/on-curation-rewards-and-their-necessity

https://steemit.com/steemit/@ats-david/make-steemit-great-again-fork-this-place

https://steemit.com/steem/@ats-witness/block-change-you-can-believe-in

It should be noted that the reverse auction ideas in the second post have just recently been implemented in the last hard fork...18+ months after that post. Still waiting on post/curation reward parity.

It’s the rationale for 50/50 that most people miss or won’t acknowledge - that non-bloggers are the demographic that we ought to cater to when it comes to incentives. It’s a much larger demographic and the more promising chance of “mass adoption” and consequent (potential) capital appreciation.