I strongly oppose the "5 votes a day" target.
I thought one of the greatest changes to be implemented so far was when that target INCREASED. People have not been so stressed in the last month or two about curation rewards; they just vote for what they like and have fun.
I don't think Steemit will be FUN anymore if there is an expected target of 5 votes per day. People will spend much less time on the site. They will vote for predictably popular content. And we will be right back where we were a couple of months ago.
No, it will be worse than that. Because 20 votes a day used to stress people out. 5 votes a day? NO ONE can do any real curation under that scheme.
As an individual and an established author, the 5 votes a day could be great for me. If we go back to the days when everybody upvoted the same posts, then maybe I'd get all those votes again. I could quit my job and write for Steemit full time.
And we'd go back to the days when emerging authors and artists got far fewer votes and rewards.
As far as curation and voting bots, they are being used for very good purposes also. Rather than turning our tails and running away from them, why don't we use them for the greater good? I think the mega-whales' curation teams are doing a far better job than ever before at redistributing rewards; I make nothing from being involved in that effort, but I think it is working quite well. Give the vote sliders and the voting bots more time; Steemit's front page is finally diversifying and newer people are getting rewards like never before.
One more thing: Redistribution of Steemit's resources from big whale accounts to the masses MUST be one of our top priorities. How does this help? I understand that big whale accounts may make less on curation rewards, but I think few of them are concerned with this anymore; they're trying to channel their votes to worthy posters. They have recognized that their big stakes will be worth nothing unless we make this thing succeed.
Under this scheme, the big whales will need to sell the max on exchanges every week and other people buy their Steem for any real redistribution to occur. That will hold down the price and our competitors will zoom right by us.
Steem Team, I understand you are trying to solve real problems with these tweaks. I don't normally comment on them because I feel that Steemit is good enough that there is some margin for error with these back-end decisions. But this is far, far too severe a change for the platform to absorb.
RE: Announcing Steem 0.14.0 Release Candidate