So, you still voted our witness up until about two minutes ago, when I unvoted you for continuing to disparage legitimate work because you believe that anyone and anything with even a cursory tie to MSP or any whale you don't approve of is the death of the platform. Do you believe that we have gotten where we are because we haven't done any work? As 'new, fresh, and strong ' - because that's what we are - who spend all day, every day, in Steemit Chat and Discord helping in any myriad of ways, who have worked to contribute both directly to PAL and to ALL of Steemit, do you believe that we shouldn't have a shot to rise as well? You seem to be saying that you simply believe that only new witnesses should be considered right and true and useful, but then also shun any who rise TOO quickly, even when they've dedicated full time careers for almost half a year now. Is it enough? It's starting to be. All of our tools are publicly available for use by any Steemian, and built for those who want to find and use information that they may find difficult as new users to the platform, so I'm curious to know why getting some large votes from accounts who are starting to see that worth makes those contributions any less valuable.
This is one discussion of many, which invites this specific "untouchable group" to be willing to come talk openly in a forum where questions can be asked and minnows can actually listen in. Your complaints about the old guard are that they don't listen to or want to discuss the needs of this evolving platform, yet get upset at the first attempt to ask them to willingly come together and speak directly to the minnows and middle class who normally don't have access to them. You seem to be assuming that some massive decisions will be made or something of the like. Why would you NOT want these people to step up and actually speak? And why would you believe that other cohorts wouldn't be involved in this and similar discussions by chatting along and holding these people accountable, or having the next discussion with a different set of participants? You're painting with an awfully broad brush
Most of the biggest ones are commenting they don't plan to attend. I unvoted your witness because I did in fact make the assumption it was your counterpart who unvoted mine, not you Jeff, and it surprised me, but i needed some open slots to add some other witnesses anyway, and you handed me a reason. Your partner calls them spite votes, Id call yours a spite unvoting, to be honest.
You and I always got along, but you DID decide to stay and support something ive seen from the inside and its not entirely pretty and rosy in there, and you darn well know it. I really feel like you could do SO MUCH more good untethered from them.
How much has PAL paid you to support what you do and pay for, for them? If its like the radio, they will post and profit off you, but you will pay for your contributions to $100 dollar bragging posts on your back, without seeing much help to pay for your RPC, and the Radio bills you pay and so on. Delegations to the radio don't count, when the bills are a couple hundred fiat cash per month out of pocket. I dont know why you do it, and that is your call, but it smells like others making post money off your work to me.
Tell me you are being repaid for all you pay for, and I'll stand down on that, but you are not, and yet the brag posts from your leaders routinely bank big bucks for shit posts about going on the air on the station you work hard on and pay for.
But hey here's 5 bucks for writing a love juice commercial to the best writer who makes us back 100 on the announcement post for promoting the pornographic profit bot.
Whatever Jeff, I have no idea why you choose to donate so much, but what you get back, aside from visibility, doesn't measure up, and the minute you shun anything, watch that visibility fail you. The family is not that tight after all. Except for the ones who play both sides or left completely, and we all seem to having a grand time post-PAL out here in other communities.
End of the day man, I still like you, but I don't know why you put up with it.
The whales who come to this will all paint a rosy picture like Aggroed tried to do up there in his comment, but it's not the reality of the platform's numbers right now.
Heh, either way, I kept my mouth shut, but Mr Deescalator up there poked the bear and you did too by unvoting, and thats cool I get it. True colors will eventually shine on Agg, but i didn't see it coming from you.
Actually, he came to me and let me know he un-voted you along with his reasoning, and while I told him I didn't want to until you answered his questions first to get the benefit of the doubt, I fully supported his logic. However, you didn't, and your instant assumption he was coerced to "spite un-vote you" is...telling, wholly incorrect, almost martyrish in it's insinuation of personal attack...and a little bit pot-to-kettle, frankly. You didn't answer his question about whether or not being new witnesses who work incredibly hard, both at MSP, and on our own ventures much moreso, is enough for you. You didn't address why you're so mad about people outside of the old guard rising relatively quickly, because in reality, all of our large, moving votes have come in direct correlation to the free tools and scripts and other work that we've pushed out into the Steemit ecosystem with Steemistry.
You are so fixated on the performance of others on the platform and how they generate profit, which is on a sliding scale of importance directly correlated to the reward pool drain. The rampant abuses that drain thousands of dollars a day, the bot accounts racking up thousands of dollars a day, the proliferation of thousands of copy paste shit posts a day — this is where we need to start focusing our efforts as a collective, and part of that is looking at how to make curating good content as lucrative as going out and buying a vote among a million other things. The only way to change that is to get up to the top, and to do that on merit. You seem to be angry with us both for actually rising with verifiable non-MSP work (with no begging or bullshit), but also for NOT making money.
Half your response is about others making money, and why not us?! We donate a number of services both to MSP and other projects. That's our prerogative, because we set out clearly when we started that we would donate to development. Just like we don't charge subscriptions for the stuff we build (and there are competing services who do) we don't begrudge how people choose to make their money on here, provided it doesn't represent a significant imbalance to the reward pool by unethical means like spam and scams — not just because of dirty limericks. (As for lovejuice, I don't really care either way; I just looked, and minnows can afford it, unlike most big bid accounts now. It pays $5 to minnows who contribute, and usually makes less than $2 on each post it paid for. Choose your battles. I made $100 in three posts. Come for me, then.) We are not questing after money; you can look at our wallets and see that clearly and fairly. There are a million roads we could take to get rich which would launch us beyond witnessing and MSP, and they would be shitty and harm the long term viability of Steemit. We don't need to be paid back for donations freely offered. We make them to MSP, and even more frequently, we make them to the Steemit ecosystem overall.
There needs to be competition to build a fatter middle class — and that does mean profit. I'm quite altruistic, but also believe that you need to grow to exert influence, and that both my art and my business work deserve to be paid. That doesn't mean I chase the people donate to in a guilt-trip, or scam the people of a platform I love. It means I put my fucking head down, do the work in ALL of the pots on the stove, and earn it by rising to be a high level witness. It is all deserved, despite your continued passive suggestion we do not. Competition between witnesses, devs, and even Steemians, if you frame it between the bot-nets and shit posters and the people who come here just looking for a chance and something new, is growth. We've done that WITHOUT shilling for money, and asking "what's in it for us."
Pulling some whales into discussion is a step to take towards that, just like we're also encouraging follow-up forums of different groups as well. It makes sense to put those who will talk in front of an audience to prompt them to listen, instead of just blindly up-voting a post full of lies they will never read. I don't understand why you're threatened by trying to gather a group that normally stays out of the light and away from the people who are asking for this. I also don't know why you think that the same thing isn't being prepped for smaller influencers and the smallest users as well, since that's already been addressed. These are the sorts of things that need to happen to get everyone moving, and I'm sorry your giant slew of assumptions has you casting aspersions on my partner. Perhaps you believe he or I don't deserve a voice either?
Last week we started declining any witness post payouts unless it was a tool that killed us with a significant cost out of pocket. People could profit from that by posting about us and our stuff, but that doesn't change our reasoning nor our efforts; please don't bother getting enraged on our behalf about that, either. Whatever true colours you think you see in Jeff, because he and I continue to both work hard for ourselves, Steemit and for other projects — including MSP — in the way we have always promised to...well, I posit you need your eyes checked. Jeff is one of the best Steemians out there, which is why I stand with him and work with him every day.
Funny, everything Ive ever seen you do is for PAL and PAL doesnt really pay you back, been there, paid for it, ate it and know it all too well.
And if you can stand without PAL, why do you bother there?
Anyway, nice of you to respond, first words from you in a long time, and I'll take them, even if they are not particularly nice. Yep, I was right about sam, and that will never be admitted, and I'm not real wrong here either. But time will tell that too.
Sucks you've chosen like you do, I operate off things that come true though, and you mostly just operate on something I can't figure out. Some kind of loyalty to something that has only marginally been loyal to you, and at least USED to upset you daily and I know this from your own mouth.
Why? There is no /shrug here, but imagine it happening anyway, just for moment, just to see how it feels.
I miss the shit out of you. I still love you, and I respect you, and yet, we will never agree on the merits of the same people that youve supported even as you told me in private how much grief they caused you.
Marginalized, mysognized and still you cling. I don't get it. I have more respect for you than you think despite you breaking my heart every single day. And so it goes. Im all good out here. People love the project Im building and its getting more attention and traction than i ever dreamed of.
Surprisingly losing all the PAL witness votes didnt even move my number at all. I truly was surprised by that, but it allowed me to change some votes too and give them to people trying in earnest to give more than they keep.
I kept you two till today, because I like Jeff and I love you, but when he, or both of you agreed to, drop me, well, it did "speak volumes" about the value and loyalty behind your vote there.
Its not for whats good for the world and whats good for the block, its what visibility and politics it causes for you.
Keep sticking with a ship that is losing relevance and important members all the time. I guess it works for you.
But neither of you need them, and its my belief they end up holding you back, costing you income and preventing your real freedom to be yourselves and contribute as you wish to the chain.
Steemistry is still associated with PAL, so what are these projects you two do, that are not PAL. Its not the rpc node or the steemit fork or steemistry or your other tools, so what are they?
While we are at it, I am ABSOLUTELY not against people making money on the chain, but those that do so while in part taking advantage of others (pay for my radio station while i make $150 shit posts and eat chips on the air) or who do so while pretending they are all about giving while at most delegating which is not giving up shit at all, are fakirs and snake oil and no better than your recently outted senior mod last week.
There are people here who admit to making money, and offer good services, like someguy and reggae and i keep them voted, but others who just "take what they can and burn the rest", or who wont remove a mod because it might cost them money and suckup value, can suck it.