I'm new on Steemit and am only beginning to discern and learn the patterns of etiquette and politics that operate, both at the regular/object, and at the meta levels of the Steemniverse...I'm just glimpsing stuff right, but I  am putting it together in my head to form a developing notion of what it's about (I have came on board enthusiastically). 
One of the themes that has come through pretty clearly to me is the movement towards something new - an undefined new paradigm of sorts, in which there is or may be some/excellent  financial gain to be had, but where the promise/expectation of this it is not the driver of participation, merely a by-product that also motivates and incentivises. The real driver - in my perception of this 'new-ness' - is the desire to express oneself and engage with others *with sincerity*, and free from the insecurity of a centralised, controlled platform. The fact of relative 'real-world' anonymity on Steemit makes this easier for an introvert like myself to do, as I don't have the psychological burden of speaking to an audience that largely knows me 'out there' as well (as I did on Facebook until I left in 2014, after which I shunned all forms of social media until Steemit dropped into my lap via @pressfortruth on Youtube). 
So, the point of my post is that I have also noticed the spam, the bots, the high rolling income numbers on various Steemians through various means and methods....but I also noticed this new-looking movement of energy towards something that I am not attempting to describe– and its voice was much louder than the voice of greed. I felt it in a welcome post I received minutes after my introduceyourself post went live – from @bethwheatcraft herself  actually :); I felt it in numerous posts discussing the etiquette and philosophy as the authors and curators ideally saw it; and I felt it in some of the videos I watched on dtube and guides I read on Steemit, all sincerely striving towards a community with solid, basic values of equality, independence, self-responsibility, transparency and all the other great human lovey-dovey stuff that feels *good*.
It may take a wee while, but values do over time tend to pick up force and energy - the shift IS happening. IMHO, the more newbies experience this intangible difference that I'm not really trying to talk about, the more the positive and desirable attitudes (basically playing it straight :) will become the norm. Steemit, in my opinion, has the potential for this, and you Beth, along with a growing army of others, are doing a lot to ensure that these issues stay HOT.
Thank you and namaste

*grabs the mic*

If you lose followers over this, *good riddance* I say.  You will gain more followers by speaking up.  I agree with @grumpycat's efforts.  I think this will only better the platform.  As for your argument about outside links / content, I also agree.  I've been an on and off twitch streamer for the last 2 - 3 years.  It was never beneficial for me so I got bored.  I've recently been looking for a way to stream twitch on steemit, but then I noticed d.live.  The next time I stream anything it will be on that.  

What gets me is how people who have table scraps invested in the platform compared to some of these 3 million + dollar accounts think that the bigger whales have no reason to protect their investment.

As a newcomer to the platform, I am 100% okay with whales laying the smackdown because I can see the abuse happening every day.

I really enjoyed both your initial post and the subsequent comments. I am new to the platform and trying to find my way around. It would be helpful if the FAQ section of Steemit contained a bit more information about down voting as it seems people struggle to know where the button is. I want to keep learning how to help make Steemit work for everyone so your post (and similar) along with all the comments are really helpful. Thank you

Hahaha! Canon Camera... Seriously though. How did that make $10? The most I've made off a post so far is less than $0.50...

All bow to the mighty Canon camera. Cats can get very grumpy. Have seen a lot of those oatmeal-hole posts. Those pie-hole posts. They come from a mentality of post like it is a text kind of thing. Facebook is making billions of dollars off of what we do here on Steemit. Facebook is like a ghetto. YouTube is censoring people. But Steemit is growing as is Bitcoin.

The cat is very sweet by the way :)

I can see where you are getting upset BUT some of us came-to Steemit because it was advertised to us that it was a non-censored Facebook. 

If you want more people to join Steemit, you are going to get more “shit posts.” Why? Because when I get “my mom” (or any other Facebook user) off Facebook, she’s not going to all of a sudden become a professional blogger/photographer. We will probably still see pictures of her grandkids - which I think is fine.

I put effort into what I post and I’m glad others do too. I’m enjoying the writing community and reading short stories, and even these types of posts AND the simple pictures by everyday people. 

PS. If I had enough steem Power, and I would have seen the “shit hit the fan” post early enough, I would have given it my $.01 upvote.

Thanks a lot for sharing your valuable post....
Best of luck..
I will still 
wait your next post....

I definitely agree with what yourself and @grumpycat are trying to say. There's definitely a whole lot of people posting garbage to the platform here, which, in a system of "creating and **curating** high quality content", is definitely bad news bears. I often forget that there's the counterpart to the upvote button -- the all powerful flag / downvote. I forget to use it, but it's definitely necessary.

At the same time, however, it's interesting to hear the whales complain bout this and try to 'rally the troops' to join them, when they themselves are the ones that are getting the majority of the reward pool. Maybe if the 'wealth' or 'influence' on the platform here were more evenly distributed,  people would be more compelled to flag things, because they actually see what it's like to get a slice of the reward pool, and would want to protect it from being raped.

Right now, to some degree, it just sounds like whales yelling, trying to get minnows and others to fight for them (the whales).

Hahaa, by now you prolly thought that my response would not appear here. Well maybe you're right. It's not that I have nothing to say; it's that I'm mulling over the evidence. I agree with most of what you are saying, but you underestimate the other guy's greed, so I may dedicate a post of my own on this subject. If I post the evidence I will be truly hated. This platform truly is like the street, you can find everything you like and dislike, but the manipulation has positive as well as negative sides to it, and I'm undecided on whether to expose or not. I also want this platform to succeed in a way that represents true merit. Greetings!

I can't find @DineroConOpciones or his post as i'm quite interested in that topic. What I can say is the reason me and many others came to this platform was because a youtuber promoted it. Honestly if the target audience is those not using other forms of social media then this will never get big. What your saying implies people can't cross link there social media. Most social media stars advertise there twitter in YouTube and there is no problem there, same as any other things they do e.g. t-shirts. Then avid followers would follow them and/or make an account to follow them. In both cases twitter sees more usage.

I won't say who made me make an account because some people on this platform with one downvote have the voting power to destroy 1000 upvotes from minnows. If this platform is ever going to be main stream the users won't pay for an account or invest into one, the average person doesn't invest in anything but bad debt for unnecessary things. Which makes me worried why I can't find @DineroConOpciones, did he piss off @grumpycat or other big accounts and got his downvoted till he deleted? He may have had 1000 upvotes but just a couple whale downvotes forever and he will never make money. What's to say some users didn't migrate from youtube to help him out on this platform and then get embedded in this like me. Surly attracting genuine users is the best thing a poster could do? It also seems like you said if he did the exact same but uploaded to dtube it would be fine. Why? It shouldn't matter where the video comes from if it's original. It's just extra work for the uploaded. I once tried to upload to d.tube for 2 hours and it didn't work/I couldn't use it so I uploaded to youtube and posted a link ... am I now destroying steemit? 

As I can't find him I can't make a valid judgement by watching the videos. I just think potentially it was unfair. There is a lot of etiquette on this platform that is rarely spoken of and hard to find out unless you have alot of spare time like me, but even I am still learning about this platform and I must have been using it for 2 hours minimum a day for 3 weeks now. I think people should be taught that isn't viewed well by the community, not named and shamed. I didn't mean this to seem like a rant on your post I'm just trying to show the other side of the argument. And I'm also fed up with whales not liking something and instantly getting there way at the cost to the minnows due to unbalanced power, reminds me of corrupt governments. I also don't mean to get all cheesy but they have great power and that comes with great responsibility if they like it or not. This platform NEEDS to be accommodating to not crypto enthusiast who don't have money to invest, who won't spend hours researching the etiquette of steemit. I hope you can see my opinion as a valid one, as I view yours, even though they are different.

Hell the Cannon Camera was top quality work considering some of the other posts by @amanat1993 

Here is another upvoted shit post winner by the same guy.

![2.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQma3iKcLznmSWr1TqRH77KHr4yNrF2DXqtWz8FEALQFZkK/2.png)

This one really touches the soul.. makes me introspective about life and forces me to wonder "what really does happen when the shit hits the fan?"...

It seems pretty clear most of the upset people are those who have become dependent on vote-bots to farm income with low effort posts.

The thing is, half of grumpycats posts are shit too, kettle calling the pot

Unfortunately issues with the current protocol is contributing to this problem, and most of the large stakeholders seem either not to understand the problem or not to consider it a priority.  The Steem community has a lot of potential, and there are a lot of us still fighting for its future, but there's a real possibility that its greatest value will be as an experiment to inform future projects.

I think we need a non-linear rewards curve back and curation rewards for downvoting as well as for upvoting to start with.