#Steemit: Should high profile accounts be allowed to 'self upvote'?

BEFORE you scroll beyond this entire article, I would like to point out that people are often called idiots because they opt to not read before they 'tweet' - pardon the Twitter relation, I felt I wanted something that rhymed.

So - we have all been there at the very start when no amount of advice was ever not suitable; newbie, newb, minnow, plankton - if that is even applicable as plankton probably earn more than I do and yet, here I am three months down the line probably writing a post that will get me downvoted to a reputation in the minus category.

Point being, I feel like I have to write this.

(IMAGE SOURCE: pixabay.com)

When I joined Steemit some months ago, in the initial stages prior to approval, I was reading up on every bit of information I could in order to prepare myself on how to make the most of this platform and how to benefit from it - aside of the most basic points; Quality, Quantity, Originality, one thing stuck out the most, give yourself an upvote.

At the time I had no idea about voting power and how this diminishes with each and every upvote - God, I thought these were 'free', I had no idea they could run out!

Long story short, initially I was able to score slightly on curation however, I might as well have not done the upvote to begin with - not that I regret the learning curve.

But, since my initial actual approval on Steemit, I have found some things which I feel actually disturb me.

Account holders with Steem Power so high they could upvote themselves daily and buy two Bugatti's at the end of the month - no kidding.

This is me being scared: I am not going to mention this account holder because one single downvote will push my reputation from 46 to way below wherever I would like for it to be.

The account I am referring to has a Steem Power level of 672,169.51 - that, I think, could possibly kill me.

Needless to say, and I am not sure whether this may stem from some deep down level of selfishness however, I feel that self upvoting at this 'level' is unethical.

Why do I say that:

To upvote oneself at this stage is to basically write a check for oneself for services rendered which have not yet been applied. Remember, the self vote can be set to automatic, and in this case, it is always set to 100%

So, herewith my issue, aside of the ever increasing amount of finances paid out to this user (in seven days they will earn: 3,837.04 $ (I assume account value), 723.995 SP, 1,799.128 SBD, 4,837.69 USD) what actually leaves room for contructive criticism in the form of 'I do not agree with your content'.

When you have reached this level, and I am sorry to say: Power does corrupt. I believe that you can no longer be held accountable for what you post.

Sure, Steemians can comment with stuff like: 'You scumbag, you should have thought twice before writing that'. However, who cares? I have an account that surpasses your's way beyond imagination and I will continue to post what I want since I can still upvote myself and lessor known mortals will continue to do the same since you can benefit from curation.

| My proposal and what will probably get me downvoted | Restrict Steemians from upvoting themselves after attaining a reputation of 70 or when they have reached beyond a certain level of SP where they can financially sustain themselves beyond the input and prosecution of other fellow Steemians.

My reason for this is that there is no accountability and all the posts made by this account has received a 100% self upvote - correct me if I am wrong but am I the only one viewing this as unethical?

Prior to my becoming wiser, Steemit to me was about self-enrichment - not about giving back to the community so, how do you give back to the Steemit community when you only upvote yourself and get paid to do so?

Using https://steemworld.org I have been monitoring this account holder for the last two hours and no single vote has gone out to anyone but themselves. I went further back and noted the same thing. It is not a sin however, to not upvote anyone else but, my issue lies in that there is no accountability for this.

Perhaps I am overthinking this entire dilemma and I may be writing out of some misplaced sense of selfishness.

Herein lies my real issue which I hope you will have realised by now - is the blogger posting content that is: Quantity, Quality, Originality? The short answer is no. They are posting memes and they are earning thousands each and every day perhaps only because they have a large amount of Steem Power and you would kill for a single upvote.

Let me know what you think - should self upvotes become regulated?