@blockurator,

Just a couple of additional thoughts:

1.) **Scale Matters.** At the end of the Civil War, it is estimated that 50% of the "Greenbacks" in circulation were counterfeit. Such massive diminishment in the trust of a currency was not sustainable and WOULD HAVE CAUSED a collapse of the entire economic system. And so, extremely draconian laws were passed making counterfeiting akin to murder. And, new hard-to-replicate designs were adopted and the Secret Service created to enforce the law ... *viciously.* 

Today, there is still currency counterfeiting and the Secret Service is still throwing counterfeiters' asses into prison for sentences often longer than those for rapists. But the damage such counterfeiting can do to the overall system has plummeted and it is no where near sufficient to risk the health of the overall economic system.      

2.) **Behavior Modification**

>They wonder why their posts aren't going anywhere when these mediocre posts rise to the top of the trending page. **But they also don't stop to think that their own posting habits are keeping them from earning more.** 

This, of course, is true. Crappy posts ought to receive crappy compensation irrespective of the wallet size of their creators. Indeed, extraordinary compensation ought to be reserved for extraordinary quality, as determined by the collective opinions of a wide swath of the overall audience.

This is a **First Principle Truth.**

Imagine you're an aspiring musician under two scenarios:

**Scenario 1** (Steemit as an honest marketplace with no vote-buying/selling or other forms of game-rigging).   

You're making a pittance on your posts. And so, you go to Trending (music) to see who is making money. This guy consistently has amongst the highest payouts:
.
https://youtu.be/QEV_SEN8C3E
.
If you're smart, you'll STUDY what he's doing. His lyrics, his chord transitions and ... his sideburns. What can you learn? How does he use falsetto? What are people's reactions when he does? 

In any event, you at least have the opportunity to change the way you make music so as to become more appealing to a larger audience, and thereby make enough money to do things like ... *eating.*

**Scenario 2** (Steemit as it is today, replete with every kind of cheating and vote manipulation one could imagine). 

You're making a pittance on your posts. And so, you go to Trending (music) to see who is making money. This guy consistently has amongst the highest payouts:
.
https://youtu.be/R7qR5JZcLbc
.
Perhaps "quality really is THAT subjective." 

Or, perhaps this talentless douche is buying all his upvotes. Further investigation reveals the presence of numerous other such vocally-challenged Trenders.

What can you do? 

It's obvious that getting into Trending (music) has got nothing to do with "singing beautifully." Rather, it's all about how much money you're willing to spend buying upvotes. You can't even "do your own thing" and "build your own legitimate audience" (of any size) because everybody with money is leasing their upvotes to bidbots so that douches and dufuses can make a fortune for making people wince. 

Bottom line: If you don't have a pile of money sufficient to buy upvotes yourself, what's the point in continuing on Steemit? The "reality" is that you'll be a "guaranteed loser" and that there will be no way to improve your odds of success.     

**Which Steemit do you think would attract and retain aspiring musicians? Which would inspire legitimate long-term investors?**

No matter how one tortures logic and contorts the arguments, **_if Elvis is earning $1.00 while The Douche is earning $400 ... the system will fail._** 

*Quill*