Nicely written @joshman,

I think you did a fantastic job explaining how the reward pool works, and the essential need for "equilibrium" as you termed it.

While you might not always agree with the reasoning behind a specific downvote, you can take comfort that the result of a downvote is the return of those potential rewards to the commons where they may be claimed again.

I've been pretty hesitant to fight abuse on the blockchain. It took me the better part of a year to fully understand the dynamics, and then an entire extra year to delve into attempting to fight abuse.

What I discovered in no time at all, is that there seem to be varying opinions with what I thought was clear cut abuse. For example, joining SFR, I reported a post, and then was criticized in regards to reporting, when the user was clearly abusing the system with bid bots.

The result of this lead me to stop fighting abuse. I've not downvoted a single time since, because I really thought that bid bot abuse was agreed to be a negative impact, akin to stealing from the reward pool.

I really hope people can start agreeing on things in this respect, because it's a deterrent, at least for me it is.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the economics here.