I think it is much more effective to NOT vote at super low % because that doesn't make sense and even does not help... Also the whole bot thing is making the richest richer.. The people that ''run'' steemit are almost invisible and DAN left.. while there is not really anything happening other than a new token distribution system that is just like bitshares and stuff... there are a lot of ''not working'' apps aswel in the app section... the focus on money is in contrast with the actual earnings for minnow who just join.. leave money out as a marketing to attrack people focus on the environment and community that needs to gather on discord to be effective... that there hasn't been action about this is a huge red flag for an investor like me.. So before powering up my initial goal of 10k I will wait and see.. because I don't have the feeling there is somebody at the top who is completely honest and cares for the platform more than the money. So this is a good thing sirlunchthehost. Im thinking with you. proper management and give people the feeling they are cared for other than used would be nice. the whole steemfest thing is still the people who were paid out in huge amount of numbers and got rich because that way other people got attrackted... staying there are 400.000 + accounts now.. while 40% of my followers are actually dead... those dead ones are people who didn't get the feeling they found here the things they were told to find... proper management that's important at this point and I mis it a little bit but it is something that can be fixed. Also fix something to have a section with posts that are actually having value and time put in and have information in a seperated feed that is the main feed that are paid better than bullshit posts or youtubelinks or one sentence posts or other uninspired things so people actually start to do some time and effort and create good informative posts that will be rewarded and seperated from the crap that is now visible in the ''new'' section.
You touch on a lot of good points here. Almost 450k accounts have been created, but ~11% of accounts opened in 2016, including bots, and multiples, remain active. Almost 90% of users bail in the first year.
Oligarchical hoarding of the rewards pool, naturally undertaken by folks desirous of tending to their quality of life, proves insurmountable for the majority of people newly arrived, who aren't willing or able to cut deals for votes from whales, and refuse to be relegated to ghettos of neglected, viewless blogs.
My best guess presently is that there are between 25k and 30k unique users, with a few tens of thousands of alts and bots, still active on Steemit today.
Pandering is the route to success for most that stay, and it is easy to see blogs flogging their virtue to whales, particularly in the last weeks, as @berniesander's botnet has undertaken mass flaggings of selected blogs with no little fanfare.
You can practically smell the drool of the panderers, obsequiously sucking up for their 1% pats on the head from their chosen master.
As you might guess, this is not my strategy ;)
Thanks!