I don't see the contradiction. I have always maintained that they can do whatever they want with their stake. When we find equilibrium, we will know the correct price. I don't get your objection.

My objection is based on the fact that your methodology is flawed.

In a free market, where anyone can do what they want with their stake, there has to be in exchange with the consumer. If I believe that another provider is charging too much for their product, there's an opening in the market for me to provide the same sort of content for less. That's an opportunity. As a result there ends up being more choice in the market for the consumer.

That is pointedly and aggressively not what's going on here. Instead we have an external private regulator who aggregates the power to decide how much that people who have voluntarily engaged in commerce with a third-party have the ability to influence the rewards for that third party. He is not introducing a competitor, but instead directly modifying the amount that the alternative provider is being allowed to possess.

This is a mechanical construct that is the opposite of a free market, one in which actual price levels simply cannot be found. It is literally the execution of monopoly power in the marketplace – in this case, Bernie and H-dude are both providing content for value, but rather than having to improve his content in order to get a larger share of the funds that people want to reward people with, Bernie is actively engaging in insuring his competitor (much smaller competitor, let's note) cannot do business.

But you know this. You have observed it. You have supported it.

Am I then supposed to take away that you don't actually care about determining what a reasonable price is for the goods on trade but instead have a preference for one brand over the other to the point where you are willing to support their anticompetitive practices?

Because from a rational external position – that's exactly what you're doing. It's exactly what Bernie is doing.

Who? Let's compare/contrast if we're getting what we're paying for here. I maintain it's big fat no.

There are quite a number of them, and all of them have been bloggers for one or more newspapers for years.

But you've just provided a strawman argument.

It actually doesn't matter how much other people can earn, because the real question is why do you think that you have the right to judge how much that they should earn? You have yet to justify that arrogation of power. Not once. It's like you're afraid of it.

The bottom line is that some powerful people can judge that other people, equally or less powerful, are "making too much," without actually caring about whether or not the people who support them, the people who are, themselves, investors in the market are interested in giving that degree of reward to the subject in question. None of that matters. Only the question of "is this person making more than I think they should be?"

We both know that what's going on here is the worst kind of market distorting interventionalist third-party regulatory activity. No one in their right mind could believe that the intention is to derive a "fair market price" for the goods on display. That's never what this has been about. Not even Bernie goes that far in self-justification.

So don't lie to me. Don't lie to yourself. I'm one of the token free market capitalists on the platform, we can be honest with one another.

Just answer my question. How do you justify your position in a rational manner that doesn't end up being used against you and people that you agree with? And if you're okay with all of this being arrayed against yourself, don't you think that that is an unhealthy state of affairs for both a social media network and a cryptocurrency?

Because it is absolutely unhealthy. There is nothing good about this. The optics are terrible, the effects are terrible, the reminder that anybody can be silenced at any time for crossing the wrong powerful person – terrible. There's nothing good here. The results are even terrible, because everybody but the top 100 holders of SP get absolutely screwed on redistribution. The impact is negligible. So it can't even really be justified as "good for the minnows." It's nothing for the minnows.

I'm just trying to get at the root justifications.