If You Can't Beat Them, Beat Them!

I've spoken before about the potential I see in steemit and the steem blockchain for positive change in our world and while there are many positives that can be pointed to in making this argument, at the moment and for me personally, the platform doesn't represent anything close to this potential.

I've also spoken in the past about my reasons for wanting to remain a part of the community because I recognised that the platform represented a microcosm of society with men and women from all walks of life for the most part brought together by the desire and need for change in how the world works and how we interact with one another.

I have to admit to being wrong in my assessment. There may have been a time when this assessment was accurate but that time is long gone. Day by day this place is becoming more and more represntative not of society as a whole but of the most selfish and destructive elements of it.

Many among us have tried to bring attention to the dangers of allowing such behaviour to continue and multiply but time and again our efforts have been met with silence.

Those of us who it could be said care most about the future of the platform have been forced to watch the behaviour we disagree with persist and multiply while those who profit it increase their ability to profit while at the same time reducing our ability to counter it.

There are lots of things I don't understand about steemit. One of the main things I don't understand is why steemit,inc aren't doing more to eliminate or mitigate some of the more abusive behaviours that many of us feel are destructive in the long term and which, from a capitalist viewpoint, which is not my own, should be viewed as bad for business.

I'm not a fan of vote selling services and there are many, many more like me who feel the same way. For my own part, it has really affected my time here and took a lot of enjoyment out of the experience.

This is just my experience of course but I would contend that my own experience is reflected in those of many other users to a greater or lesser degree so I don't understand why steemit,inc haven't done anything to combat this abuse of the system they created when they have the power to stop it or at least mitigate the effects.

The prevailing sentiment at the moment would appear to be that vote buying and selling is here to stay. Until such time as we figure out a solution that would appear to be true but what we could do in the meantime is stop allowing the few at the top to further enrich themselves at our expense and use the situation to the advantage of us all.

Anyone who has been here for more than 20 minutes knows that the promoted page isn't worth a fuck and this is THE excuse for using vote buying aervices. Promotion and visibility. Obviously the functions in place for promotion aren't up to the job which is why so many feel the need to pay whales for their upvotes.

So if paying for visibility and promotion is what people want then let's give it to them. Let US give it to them.

If steemit,inc wanted to, they could create a community bidbot account and delegate to it whatever amount of steem was necessary to replace all the existing private upvote bidbots that currently operate.

This account could service all of those who would like to pay a little extra in order to get more visibility for their posts but rather than individual members profiting at the expense of the rest of us and perhaps even the platform itself, we could all share in the profits and supoort the platform.

All money raised from the sale of votes from this community account could be powered up and the SP accrued could be used to support community projects in future by way of delegation.

This might also help with the steem/sbd ratio problem we seem to be having right now by locking up more steem in future.

As I said, I'm not a fan of vote buying or selling and would rather we could find a way to eliminate it altogether but since at the moment we don't seem to have the ability between us to come up with a solution to the problem or the will to implement it, this is my suggestion for at least improving the situation somewhat. If indeed you want to change the situation.

I haven't posted anything for a little while and to be honest, I wasn't sure I wanted to post anything else in future. I'm really disappointed in what we're allowing this place to become but I've decided not to let the behaviour of others detract from my experience so I intend to start posting regularly again and sharing my thoughts with anyone willing to hear them.

For now, have a great day and thanks as always for your time.

See you again soon. :)