This is not one of my usual posts, as you can see. Up to now, I haven't had much to say about this issue, but I guess it's time to say something. This issue was brought home to me in a more direct way on a comment on my last post.
Someone upvoted a comment that was left on my post, and that upvote was negated by one of the flame war bots. Then the next comment to that was made to disappear and a stupid meme was posted under that disappeared comment.
Let me say here that this has nothing to do with my post, it affects a comment on that post. However, it still ends up on my page as part of the flag war. Up to this point, I've just been seeing this kind of shit on other people's posts, but it seems to be spreading all across the steem blockchain like a virus. I've seen a few of the names involved with this plague of flagging people simply because the other person doesn't like them, but I don't know all of the actors involved, and I don't want to know. It doesn't really matter who it is, it's enough to know that it's being done by accounts with some of the largest stake on the platform, along with some not so big accounts.
The main thing that I see is how bad this entire flag war virus is for the steem platform, and for the value of steem it's self. In the past couple of months, the value of bitcoin has gone from less than $4000 to above $5000, and the price of Liecoin has more than doubled. In this same time, the value of steem has been stagnant, still sitting at 44 cents as I write this. 44 cents is about a 10 cent or so increase over that same two months that Litecoin doubled. If steem had risen in the same manner as bitcoin and Litecoin, it would probably be worth about a dollar now instead of 44 cents.
I have to ask myself, why is one of the best and most useful blockchains in existence right now stagnating while the others are gaining value? I'm no crypto expert so I don't have any technical answers for the question, but I do have a speculation. Could it be that all this flag war for no valid reason bullshit have something to do with keeping investors away from steem? You gotta ask yourself, why would you invest in a crypto coin that has self destructive tendencies due to some investors dislike for other investors. It's not like these people are flagging shitposts or plagiarizing, they're simply flagging people that they don't like, and downvoting any posts or comments that the other people upvote. Meanwhile, those of us who are just minding our own business and posting content are getting caught in the middle of this stuff.
If I was a person with some money to invest in crypto and I came across this kind of behavior on the blockchain, I would certainly think twice before investing any money in steem. And yes, this stuff is out in the public sphere on other social media for anyone to see. People are talking about it.
As an investment, this self destructive platform doesn't make any sense for a new investor. There are better crypto coins to invest in that will bring you better returns than steem will right now. Lets face it, if you have a fair amount of money to invest in a crypto, why would you want to put your money into a stagnant investment that is showing self destructive tendencies due to a flag war that is more of a pissing contest between 2 groups of people than anything else?
So, what I think this all comes down to, as I and probably a lot of other people see it, is that steem is failing in its potential, and, in my opinion, it is at least partially due to this flag war that has been dragging on for months now. I don't expect it to stop anytime soon, it has become a personal vendetta for both sides in the flag war. I also don't expect the value of steem to rise very much while the general trend in cryptos is currently in an upward direction.
It makes me wonder if my efforts at posting decent content are worth while, or a fool's errand.
That is all I have to say on the subject of the flag war for this post. I'm guessing it will fall on blind eyes anyway, the opinion of a minnow doesn't mean much on this platform.
I am declining payout for this post as I don't think this subject should be given any glory or reward. Don't upvote this post, you'll be wasting your vote. If you have read the post, leave a comment.
