Cosmopolitan Wrap Around suite ;) one of the best rooms in Vegas for the price.

Meh, I hear your concerns, but let them have their promotable posts. I still believe that most of the good content will come from the 'minnows' among us who do not promote their posts.

I am hoping this promoted posts does not turn out to be a bad thing.   A place where only the steem powerful and financially wealthy can afford to dwell.   If that is where all of the votes end up gathering then that could pretty effectively kill the rest of the platform.

If that does happen I know my time on steemit would be greatly reprioritized.   Knowing me that'd be down sizing my time commitment to steemit, and at some point I'd likely just stop using it.

I'd hate to see this.

I do see some pros of the promoting.      There may be some big cons though as well... really big.

I've decided to not vote on promoted posts, unless the post was promoted by someone other than the author. As I think that "Promotion" should be a way that people can feature other peoples work... but maybe  I am being unreasonable with this line of thinking.

I promoted My latest post just because i wanted to see how it worked now I know it doesnt work very well, That's what I get for being nosey

Wow nice photos! I Like your logic on this one, But I feel like most whales won't do that. They have the biggest stake on the platform. Doing something like that would hurt the platform.

Vegas!!!!!!!!

I think the main and key driver is still quality of content. Content is king. If you post good content it will attract votes, hence anyone should vote on that early because that's what's profitable (and also feels right ).

That said it will make it easier for people to notice you when you promote. That I think is the key reason why whales and anyone should check out the promo page first when looking to vote on things. 

Unless your post goes viral right away, it disappears very very quickly. If you have followers u might still be in luck. 

But if you have a decent post and no name then it's likely worth a shot to promote.

Yesterday I paid 50-60 for two post that I thought could be sticky. One was about photography and it only earned $2. The other made me $80 and the money and votes grew continuously over the 24h. I would have only made a few $ without the promotion. So this is valuable both for me and the curators.  Of course there is cost to this as well.

I think the fact that money is being burned, is not enough of a factor to actually change behavior.

@sean-king

excellent post. flawless

These are great questions! I wouldn't know the answer until I see some actual change within the system. So far, I would assume it would be an opportunity to redo, low voted posts, and then promote them to give old post another try. It's a good way to feed the platform, making it stronger. IMHO

As someone pointed out to me, I think promoting should only be used by others to promote your post. Using promotion to do to your own post, defeats the whole subject of this platform...

How funny, my girlfriend and I just got back from Vegas yesterday and had that same view at Cosmopolitan.

Cosmo, huh?  good taste

Good point, Sean. The burning of steem dollars via promotion helps keep the STEEM DOLLAR inflation under control and those that promote their posts with cash are putting something at stake, showing they believe in their content. After checking my follower feed, I check promoted posts before the third section of new and trending posts.

Another fantastic post (they always are).  I think the reason whales wouldn't do this is contained in your post.  They don't want people to think they are in it solely for the money.  

People have been crying foul about the inequality and I think in some ways the whales will be damned whatever they do.

If they (particularly the large whales) started doing this the perception of it could be quite negative.  

On the other hand if they actively avoid the promotion page due to this then that will be a disincentive for people to use it which also would not look good.

It is a tricky situation for sure.  I think your "Vegas" analogy is apt although I think for the vast majority of people it has been like this from the beginning.  It will be interesting to see how this evolves.

Even though the whales often work in similar ways, they still are individuals 😀 A few whales doing this wouldn't be enough to drastically shift things too far in this direction, and I don't expect them to do any type of mass collusion to make it happen. Interesting thought though 🐳

There is another incentive at play as well. As you describe, if this behaviour became the norm, it means a risk of losing users and harming public perceptions of the platform (if only promoted posts have value). This could ultimately result in a greater loss to a whale's investment (through falling Steem values) than could be gained as you say by voting exclusively for promoted posts. Some will probably see it as you do, and vote exclusively for promoted posts, but I expect (and hope even) that the majority will not.