@snowflake thank you for writing this post. I really appreciate it, because now I believe I'm more understanding of why and how whales operate.

As much bashing as there are for whales like yourself who chooses to NOT UPVOTE due to the incentives, you did what you believe is right that is to explain **why** you choose to do what you did - Many Steemians might not understand this, but it is by understanding why this phenomenon is occurring that we can improve the system to be better.

Seriously, we must build a system that serves both the users who are here to make money and users who are here genuinely for the platform - we can't survive and grow without each other.

> Listen, listen, listen. Everyone is so busy talking about what they think is right that no one is willing to listen to what is really happening around us.

good information thanks for sharing

What have you been earning the last few weeks @snowflake?

I'm seeing around $40 a day 2 weeks ago?

Another point of view here....

https://steemit.com/steemit/@abh12345/steemit-abit-v-s-snowflake-180k-steem-power-battle

Ok, final attempt at getting your attention.

I have nothing against bots and vote selling, I do it myself.

However, looking at your recent minnowbooster rewards for the previous full week of activity, you made 305.

@abit, who has about 5000 more SP than you (without your delegation to this new account), made 501 SBD on curation alone last week.

Speaking purely from a financial perspective, and unless there are any outside payments going on, curation is 40% more profitable in this example.

Thanks for the curation recommendations :)

You should join us at @ocd ;)

I love you @snowflake , you suported my posts and it meant a lot!

I wil always remember you even after we get 1 billion new uysers after the exthard fork allows for instant account creaytion for free, I will make sure i dont forget you and you WILL make it to1 MILLION followers


ahhh i cant wait to see who can get 1 million steemitt followers first!


OH and while we sit here and argue about thi srtuff, the smart users are developing new front ends where they can simply organzie their own posts the way they want!
AND theyre  getting ready for Smar Media Tokens which wont allow big whales to flag  them anymore.. theylll be in their own little islands liek subreddts on reddit!


Oh its gonna solve a lot of problems!


we will see a;ll sorts of amazing new whales pop up too!



The old whales might even become irrelevant! we may see osme users make SO mch money by harnessing the power of 100,000 minnows to create a NEW set of whales using combined minnow power and that whale can then look after their minnows! 


Oh and the DEX will come out soon too and that will allow us tohave our OWN echange for Bitcoin and EOS etc its gonna be SOOO lit!

Thanks for information
Good job my friends @snowflake

Hola @snowflake. @alxgraham here. Lol, as if that's not just above my comment anyways. 

I've gone through a lot of comments here, and being a truly newish super minnow type member of the community, i'm a far as a person could be from fully understanding what makes STEEM better in detail, though the idea of high speed with zero fees does seem like a combination any crypto would aspire to have, if that could be managed.

One thing i do believe defines anything really great, at least in the idea/creation space, is "Is it afraid to facilitate it's own obsolescence/antiquation if ever necessary?"

I have a hard time imagining STEEM lasting too far into the future as a viable crypto system, if it doesn't end up capable of almost revolutionary evolution. 

If you could fashion "One Coin to Free Them All", what's most important to you?

Will you ever actually see this comment from months back?

Alx.

don't you think this kind of attitude will only work short term since it decentivizes creation and actual content on the website? Advertisers will not care about a website run by bots for bots

Congratulations @snowflake!
Your post was mentioned in the [hit parade](https://steemit.com/hit-parade/@arcange/daily-hit-parade-20171106) in the following category:

* Comments - Ranked 5 with 162 comments

If this is true the system is broken.  It does make clear a problem which is a opportunity for improvement.  Identifying a problem is a step in the right direction.

Maybe its a clue as to why I keep seeing what I consider uninteresting, poorly written garbage at the top.

This post is an eye opener.  I have been working so hard these last few months trying to gain reputation by producing original content and adding value to the platform by upvoting other posts that I like, but then disheartened when I received little to no comments on my own posts or upvotes.  My 3 options were to continue fighting on and hope that one day a magical whale would take pity on me, give up on steemit altogether, or utilize the upvote bots to improve my post visibility and hopefully my reputation by gaining more interest. It seemed pointless to continue doing the same thing as I was getting nowhere.  So instead of giving up on steemit (I think this platform has the potential to be an amazing place for creative thinking and really didn't want to give up), I decided to look into using the bots.  I invested cash of my own, bought SBD and started using the bots.  I didn't really make any money, but it did improve my visibility and it definitely increased the votes I received (although most were worth $0.00), but I am still grateful for them.  My followers increased too.  The people that follow and upvote my posts are amazing and I have met many creative and like-minded people here, but we all suffer with the same issue, our votes are worth next to nothing.  I have stopped investing more cash into steemit because I am really not sure that it is beneficial and can't see the future getting any better with things the way that they are.  It is a shame as the whole ethos behind steemit was to be decentralized, however I feel it is certainly centered around the 1%

nice

Congratulations @snowflake, this post is the eighth most rewarded post (based on pending payouts) in the last 12 hours written by a Superhero or Legend account holder (accounts hold greater than 100 Mega Vests). The total number of posts by Superhero and Legend account holders during this period was 21 and the total pending payments to posts in these categories was $741.64. To see the full list of highest paid posts across all accounts categories, [click here](www.steemit.com/steemit/@bitgeek/payout-stats-report-for-6th-november-2017--part-i). 

If you do not wish to receive these messages in future, please reply stop to this comment.

Two thoughts from the article and peoples comments:
1 - the sickening feeling that steemit might have the ring of a pyramid scheme.
2 - the bots, though in the short-term create more $, in the longterm will be the demise of steemit as automatic votes will keep funneling wealth upward and discourage new talent.

Wow. Thanks for sharing. I did not realize selling of up voting was so much more profitable for whales. This makes me mad. (I am now not going to tell you how this makes me feel, or what it makes me think of the future of steemit)

I would like the ability to manually change my curation ratio, like the upvote % slider!

In short why 99% of articles get less than $0.10

The idea is to get rewarded for free and not buy upvotes just because the system is still flawed. Steemit is still focusing on Aesthectics when it should be working on more important features such as getting the quality posts seen. Awww Steemit and whales you are just a bunch of greedy corporations, you make money off poor steemians.

FUNNY "The first post has earned a whopping 19 cents. This artwork to me deserves at least $10 for the time spent doing it and also taking into account the final result which is great." 

Sounds like all the work I have done and posted on steemit. Guess I don't fit the mold for steemit support. It's all about self centered thinking and greed. SOMETHING I DONT HAVE. 

In your words.. "I want to apologize to these authors for not upvoting them unfortunately I have no incentive to do so since I make 3 times more money NOT upvoting them. Now you know why whales don't upvote your beautiful work..."

I once thought Steemit could have been a positive for the future. Thank you for bringing clarity. Truth and Transparency won't happen the way it's set up. Just keeps people dumbed down and distracted I guess.

https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQmScrNwfbVe1PXMV2yy8CWKbEPx5gMGfQC7Kiw9Y2AbPFd/DestroyAllBots.png![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmTr5o2vrG4qzwm9casUtA1gnbZxYpriRj4wMjwhWhv32c/image.png)

wow i like the way you feature undervalued post but great quality content here @snowflakes, they are deserving to be rewarded. I greatly appreciate those people who spends time and make tons of efforts in posting.

Good reads here @snowflake :)

Could we maybe tag all whales, witnesses and Steemit employees to this post?

This could be the biggest hurdle for Steem to succeed, such a pain i can do nothing but admitting what you pointed out is true.

This is what I love about steemit. I'm concerned about making the most of my steempower, others are concerned about spreading the most with there steempower. Is there any "right" way to steem. No.

Thanks for the clarification and thank you for your honesty @snowflake. I understand this perfectly and I can definitely see the reason for your behaviour. I just wish that Steemit would be more like it was in the early days.

This is why I love people like @teamsteem.

@snowflake thanks for the mention, at first I thought I was affecting the curation rewards by self voting but realize it's more to do with the way the platform is set and can't do much about it.
I hope the way the system is designed improves and becomes fairer in future. I suppose human greed leads to these problems in the first place and by raising human conciousness would lead to a better, fairer world where people care about beauty, truth, quality etc.
I think the top whales and below can start with upvoting quality content to set an example to minnows of what becomes successful on this platform. Maybe they will follow. Also what you said about curation. That would be the ideal situation but I realise it is hard to do.

"that's 3 times more."

 Really? Our whales lack ambition for settling for "3 times more" rather than helping Steem grow. I wonder what eth whales had in their minds when the price was at few dollars/eth, probably not just "3 times more". That much is sure.

nice post i like that .. regards introduction from @imamalkimas

Im new here so trying to figure this all out. Is the problem that there are bots in the first place? Can Steemit do away with that "problem"? If it is the problem?

One of the things that drew me to Steemit was the idea that good content would get up-voted and in so doing cause the Steemit system to flourish by attracting positive attention to the platform because of all the visible "good" content. Seems like what you are saying is that is not really the case? Or at least, some of the best content is not being lifted because of a gimmick in the profit pay out system? 

Thanks for the post, and your time.

i find it bit funny when someone talks of value or undervalue of other peoples posts. there is upvote button - simple way to show your love toward someones work. 

how will you use it its completely your choice and noone should tell others what to support. 

its all about our individual choices and preferences. if you upvote bots, then you are into money, not into photography, music, animals or whatever. 

and theres nothing wrong in that. 

unless you start caring about future of Steemit, society, world and  such =)

Your post made me sad @snowflake...

I wonder if we all <em>really</em> earn more if skilled people leave steemit because we don't upvote them (thinking to earn more money by not doing that).
Earning more Steem is worthless as long as Steem price doesn't increase ...

I vote the way that I would buy a painting, buy a book, discuss a photo, read an article.  To that end, I don't believe that curation is the sole indicator of what's good.  I'll happily upvote things that I think are good, and if they are really good, then I'll tip the author.
One day, I will be a whale, and when I am, I will vote the same way that I do now.

I totally see your point. Maybe it could be interesting if we can choose the ratio ourselves. If 50/50 is fixed, there might be less content creating. Then again, now there seem to be a overflow of new posts which are totally neglected, our usable whale sp resources are just limited. I really want to know which the balance is to keep steemit grow sustainably.