Sure, HF19 has given us minnow a new sense of power, seeing our wallets instantly swell with rewards from post that have been upvoted before the fork, and our upvotes having more value after the fork.
No more free votes!!!
On the flipside, everyone seems to be holding onto their first 10 (100%) upvotes until something really draws them in and induces a click. Those with enough SP to have the slider have throttled their upvote percentages way down to conserve their power. Posts and comments after HF19 don't seem to be getting as many upvotes as they would have, and comment upvotes have all but dried up completely. Steemians aren't sharing the love as freely anymore... we've gone away from the free-love movement of the 60's and 70's, to the capitalism and "hold onto your wealth" 80's so to speak. Why is this? Perhaps because we all like to feel powerful, and if we spend our votes too quickly we have to stop voting and wait a long time for our power to regenerate.
So, while we have seen a brief benefit of a few more SBD in our wallets, we have also seen fewer upvotes. This means that it is more difficult to grow you reputation, and reputation is a very valuable commodity to have. It makes other steemians more willing to follow you, and in so doing creates a higher probability of more upvotes. It's the circle of Steem life!!!
What can we Minnows do about this?
- Keep posting. Keep posting high quality content, and don't make any compromises. Attract followers with your quality and honesty in your posts, not just the quanitity. Don't chase around looking for followers who don't share your interests, and won't upvote you.
- Make valueable comments in others' posts. "Great job" won't ( or shouldn't) get you an upvote. Add some personal insight of real encouragement relevant to the post topic. You're more likely to gain an upvote or follower that way. You may get an upvote if someone is feeling the love.
- Follow Steemians who attract your interest, upvote and resteem their blogs if you enjoyed them.
- Be generous with your upvotes. Support your fellow Minnows while your upvote is only worth a few cents. Your voting power doesn't really matter if you're a 3 cent upvoter like me. You can't go much lower anyway, so why hold onto it.
One day I will be a $50 voter, and perhaps then I will be more careful with my votes, and throttle back my up vote percentage to spread the love a bit further, but for now I'll continue upvoting on the basis of helping my fellow Minnow gain reputation, because I want them to grow, and I need their help for me to grow.
Minnows who swim together grow together!!!
That's my opinion at this point in time. Agree? Disagree? I'm here to learn, and am learning every day. Have your say and help me learn. Thanks for reading.
Until next time..