I've been watching a beautiful project unfold this week, but as I have, I've also grown increasingly frustrated.

As a dad, I understand how hard it is to keep a goldfish alive. We do great with dogs, and cats, even a lizard, but the fish? Nope? 3,4 days tops. And the same thing is happening on steemit. It would seem we are content to feed the whales, while minnows and plankton are left to starve.

There are some people who seem to get it.

The #dolphinschool bootcamp project, started by @Markrmorrisjr is amazing!

With just a couple days promotion, he managed to gather 20 students, who've been fulfilling daily assignments for each of the five days and creating some really wonderful content.

They've gotten some really great response, in views and comments, people are overwhelmingly positive about it, but, here's the thing.

The project is getting very little support from us!

While some of the students have earned decent payouts, the project itself is getting triple the views and comments it gets votes! They haven't had a single decent payout on any of these posts, each of them with well over 2000 words of actionable tips and resources, while the same 5 or 6 accounts sit atop the trending column, day after day after day, buying hundreds of votes and drawing hundreds more for a few pennies in profits.

Meanwhile, what evergreen, usable content are they even producing? Sure, crypto news is interesting, but what value does it have once the market changes?

Crusaders like Bernie pick one or two targets, but no one is addressing the elephant in the room!

Without wide asset distribution steemit will fail!

Right now, 41% of the assets still belong to steemit inc. That's fine, they're capitalists and deserve to reap some reward from what they've built, but right below that, we're allowing the huge percentage of our rewards to go to a few, not just a few days, but nearly every day.

Meanwhile, we're losing 90% of new accounts almost as fast as they sign up

If you've ever wondered how the 1% became the 1% Steemit is showing us. The vast majority of users, rather than creating true community and building projects that will create true wealth among them and a circle of supporters, they "invest" in the biggest accounts.

It's just like the stock market. We seek fractional, short term gains, "sure thing" by selling votes through them, buying votes from them, renting them our SP and upvoting their posts for the curation rewards. Meanwhile the average post can't be getting more than 2 votes!

If we have 250K posts per day, and the record number of total transaction is 2 million in one day. That's 8 transactions for every post. But, that includes upvotes, follows, comments, resteems, transfers, the list goes on!

If upvotes count for 1/4 of all transactions (and I'm having a hard time believing that, when we can only cast 10 full power votes in a 24 hour period) that's 2 votes per post, while some accounts are taking 1000 a day and more!

No, I'm not suggesting an equal distribution of funds.

I don't believe in communism, or socialism, it makes everyone impoverished, but, if we don't support the plankton soon, it will be impossible for anyone outside of the inner circle to even BUY their way to a decent payout, due to the overwhelming resources being consolidated in the top accounts.

No, I'm not asking for redistribution of anything! Even voting power!

I'm asking for users to start supporting real talent, especially that talen that supports the beginners.

These new accounts start with such restricted SP that they cannot complete the assignments for #Dolphinschool without trouble. (two votes, two resteems, and a post on their own blog) when these are completed, some accounts don't have enough bandwidth to comment and upvote other students, even minimally.

So why does it matter? Just shut up, buy votes, sell yours and make money!

It matters because, the only way to correct the situation we are in now, is to change it now. It's not going to get any easier. The vote selling and buying and delegation leasing is a problem. Here's why.

• The steem mining integrity is undermined when subpar, or short term value content gets huge rewards!
• Quality content goes unrecognized and many quality users will leave, impoverishing our community
• 3rd world countries are where this can spread fastest, make the most difference and create a real position in the global market for steem.
• A wider user base, earning higher rewards is the best way to solidify steem and attract the investors that will raise the price.

A higher price of steem is the only way to increase the value of the prize pool!

If we don't get more cash value in the daily rewards pool soon, I predict that many mid level and lower level users will visit less often, creating even more disparity.

If you're in the top, you may think, oh, good more for me.

But even 100% of $0 is still zero. Crypto is not like other investments. What assets are there, other than the mining operation, which is the engine driving creation on the blockchain? So, here is what I'm asking.

Please, if you're a dolphin, or whale, curate your own votes!

Sure, selling your service to the highest bidder, may seem like smart business, an easy way to make money, but like I said, 100% of 0 is 0.

And at least take a look at #dolphinschool, it's worthy of support!