What you're saying here is absolutely right.

It is the systems/businesses that are a product of human greed (bidbots are the main perpetrators) that have ruined steem. I suggested exactly what you are saying in this post (about bidbots removing value from steem without providing any positive service) in a conversation where 3 witnesses were present at steemfest, only to be talked over by a certain individual who has an inflated sence of his own intelligence/importance.

The fact is that a huge amount of value has been taken out of the system by bidbots/vote buying as these people who run them are only in it for profit. They aren't building anything positive, there service simply promotes the dumbing down of our trending as shit reaches a place that should be highlighting steem's best and brightest... and to add insult to injury, some of these people who run bidbots, are involved in a high position in some of the better discord communities. Honestly, they should be held accountable for the damage they have done! It is not all about steem price. A huge amount of talent left steem within months of joining because they saw what was going on with vote buying. But also, a huge amount of value has left steem as these vote buying services sell there profits to fiat.

There is a concerted message being pushed across steem right now, mainly by whales, about minnows & dolphins building a successful blockchain. These same people are talking about too many minnows didn't power up & took there steem out to fiat etc. But, these are the same people who delegate to vote selling services because they are too lazy to curate. They throw some autovotes to people who are agreeing with them or getting involved in thier projects but they do not curate content based on quality. Some do delegate to @curie or @ocd but even OCD have started there own vote selling now.

Basically, we have a situation here where responsibility for the mess the steem blockchain is in, is not being taken by the people who contributed most to what we're left with now. And they are certainly not changing their behaviour because they want that easy money Politics and crowd manipulation might be as old as the Bible, but that doesn't mean we should accept it or perpetuate it. Unfortunately, people are pretty much set up to be followers. Add the financial dynamics of Steem' into the mix and it is easy for people to be incentivized to say 'yes sir, I'll put in a tone of work for you' without questioning who or what they're really working for. It is also easy for bad actors in this space to suppress facts they would rather not be held accountable for through the fear of down votes.

Anyway, that's my 10 cents.

P.s. I have powered up nearly 100% of my earnings, both from posts & curie curating.

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