RE: Why Minnows Don't Buy STEEM
Self voting keeps you from voting on other content, and that keeps you from generating relationships. Those that find their rewards are coming mostly from their self votes might note that their own votes are limited in number, but the votes of the community are limitless.
For folks that have a grip of SP, self voting is self defense. If your vote is worth $100's or $1000's then not self voting seems like wasting opportunity, and that makes poor business sense. However, you're then trapped by your SP, and unable to curate and grow Steemit in the direction you want it to go.
What really chaps my hide atm, is VP decay. I haven't voted in days, and my VP is barely above 50% last I checked. I consume a lot of content on Steemit, and want to upvote everything I like, even a little. This becomes hundreds of votes per day, and my VP will not recharge, meaning my vote becomes motivationally meaningless.
TBQH, that's a lot worse than self votes, even though self votes account for a far greater concentration mechanism for wealth. The network effect of getting many minnow votes is very motivational, even though ppl want the whale votes (of course. Who doesn't like money?).
Disempowering minnows from voting, as has been shown in my example, dramatically reduces curation, which is the lifesblood of Steemit.
Thanks for the response. Hmm, yeah the voting power decay and recharge cycle are an odd wrinkle/dynamic in Steemit. On reddit, I can upvote all day long and a vote is a vote. Here, there are a lot of posts that talk about limiting your per day votes so that your VP is stable and/or is able to recharge. I am not sure what the answer is though. Hmm...
Last week I was still upvoting profligately, as had been my practice from the get-go. However, I read the white paper (which, apart from some relatively simple math, is not too impossible) and learned that if I didn't reign in my voting, my VP would continue to be debased and never recharge.
It seems that voting until your VP is down to 70% or so, and then waiting for recharge is about the best you can do. Your read of the white paper will prolly give you a better answer than I can.