RE: What is it about STEEM that its tanking so hard? // An open letter to STEEMIT.INC
Ned, I have one question for you:
What are your thoughts about bid bots? When every post in trending has bought itself there, is it wonder that we're losing users left and right? What happened to proof-of-brain, manual curation? I've been here for 2 years, wish I wouldn't have gotten invested since I was promised something that I never got here.
So how about you push splitting reward pool for passive and active investors, two groups of people, where other just wants their wealth and other who care about Steem for long term and want to curate?
Do you visit Steem's trending ever or read any posts from it? Are you proud of it?
To me it's amazing that you've only said that bid bot activity is "interesting", activity that so clearly changes what Steem's is supposed to be. That alone speaks volumes, and sadly not in a good way.
SMTs will do this, with Oracles, and Communities creating those two filters - and myriad others.
Focus. It's possible that the rigors of channeling Steem and also delivering the many UX that Steem makes possible are beyond a single organization. In fact, I am certain it is.
Given that reality, it's necessary to empower, rather than disestablish individual enterprises, however unsavory they may be, because only a free market might moon Steem. Too rigid control over UX, including Steemit, is a distraction and reduces the potential of Steem to serve all markets.