@valth... First of all I remember the days of last January 2018 when all the little peeps couldn't do anything... And while we may be used to it, we are a very small pool of the "then users". Most of those people left. I'm not being dramatic, its just a fact. So making the point that "this is always been so" is not a great argument.

I will say that when it was buried in the bandwidth as a cost, it was helpful in that people didn't know exactly what was wrong and thus gave Steemit a chance to save a few til it settled down. (I was one of those that made it through, but it was a close call as I was going to leave several times). Now on the other hand it is out in the open. Make a comment, lose RCs... Vote a witness, lose RCs... Anything and everything will cost and now it will be out in the open. I'm sure the people that don't particularly care that we have mass adoption, will applaud this "fairness" because "those people" just clogged up the system with spam and junk posts. I have seen the arguments, so no need to rehash because I understand them.

My point is one that should be so intuitive that no one seems to get it. If you bring on lots of new people and then tell them they have to pay *in RC" to comment or vote for a witness; guess what? They won't do those things. And why would they? It costs them to vote or speak their mind, so they will use their precious RCs to do what will make them money.

I don't know if you (or anyone that has an open mind at the top) have considered this, but there is a very powerful NEGATIVE MESSAGE this sends. Come to Steemit a social platform where you can speak or vote for the leaders as long as you have enough money invested. If not, then pay your dues dude. Honestly, I think you will find that most people will say "to Hell with that". I know I would and I would also make sure that everyone understood that their comments and their witness voting and other similar things will cost them the ability to do other things. Is that really a message that you would want people to see when they think of Steemit? Do you really want the users to think that they have to have money invested into the system to be able to make comments and interact (or risk losing the rewards of posting and upvoting others)?

And to your last point, you say that "its not like you will lose money by writing comments or upvoting", because they will in fact lose just that. If it takes away your RCs so you can't upvote or post, which everyone else with enough SP (thus RCs) can do, then you are taking away their money. At least that's the way I understand it, and from what I've seen from the literally hundreds that haven't been able to do anything, it appears that the loss of RCs is loss of the ability to use the system. You have choices to make as a user... Comment and engage or make money... I don't need anyone to tell me what this place will become if this sticks.