RE: SteemCleaners Negative Impact
@punreal, I am fairly new here, and I can understand the frustration of having some success be destroyed here. However, one thing that I love about Steemit is that it is a place to read great content without being overloaded with marketing of products and services. If a user is in business they can link to their website right on their profile page. If they post great content they can direct people to follow up for more information on their products and services by going to their profile page for their website link. A person can give disclosure without providing a link in their article. Personally, when I am reading an article, and discover that it is actually a sales pitch I back out, and move on to a new article. I get enough marketing to from so many other places. I don't want to be marketed to on Steemit. I've upvoted this article because I want to help you get it seen, not because I agree with you. And I have followed you now to see what other ideas you have. Cheers!
I understand your preferences are to not see any marketing materials (which in my mind is impossible because every piece of communication is a form of marketing), but that doesn't mean ALL people who disagree with you should be silenced completely.
But that's the thing, you don't have to upvote people if you don't like their marketing efforts. Similarly, you can down-vote them for that very thing if you're really off-put by it.
If there are enough people like you, it will not be profitable to share affiliate links on Steem.
However, I would argue that no one account should have the down-vote power to completely silence someone for posting things they don't like.
I agree with you on these things, @punreal. I still have not figured out how to down vote something. I thought that perhaps it was a feature that became activated once I passed a certain threshold of time or influence or something like that. Free speech is important, and I wouldn't want Steemit to loose the ability for many different points of view to exist. But I also hate wasting time wading through posts that are really selling products or services. We are all selling ideas. By the way, I checked out your posts, and I love the puns! I'll be checking in on you often! Cheers!