Sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you, I have been experiencing a lot of anxiety about using the platform.

Let me do my best to set expectations appropriately.

I am not expecting anything, I know people don't listen, and their goals aren't what the users want from the platform, but hey, can hope! I am not here to make money, I was getting everything I wanted from the communities here, I wasn't trying to say I expect all this to happen, just that you have made a lot of good points, and although I didn't go through and quote them all, when I said I hope someone listens, I was just trying to be positive, and essentially second what you'd said on the rare off chance someone might actually. I don't expect it at all.

Unlike a lot of people, I started by actually reading the white paper

You're right, I had a vague idea but didn't read it all, my other half did and came to that same conclusion, but thought it might be a good opportunity for me anyway, not to make money, just in terms of the communities and feeling like I have a reason to create.

I wish could be evergreen rewarded because I end up citing it a lot.

It is a fair point, there is no distinction between something of lasting quality that will be referenced for years to come, and something meant for one time viewing. You can write something with lasting value, but you don't get to see that. I have seen a fair few of those endlessly useful posts, far too old to show the love on!

See, this isn't new. This is the way that it has always worked, it's just that this is the latest opportunity to talk about this being the way that it's always worked. Always. That the curve is flatter and now biased against the original creator just in general with the basic ratio simply makes the situation worse for people who thought that they could be creators and competitive earners on the platform.

I am not saying it is new, just worse. I realized a long time ago this isn't a place for actual creators, its great for fun, and community projects, but actual creators have to devalue their work to put it on here. I have seen so many fade off the platform because they were losing money posting something here instead of somewhere else, and too principled to put it on both. You're right, what the content is doesn't really matter.

I did know about the dust vote level, but see I need you like on tap, i can be eloquent but rarely have the time. You have put so well the problem of it being more profitable for big users to upvote "safe" bets.

From the perspective of you and I, what we really want is for our vote to have a consistent, predictable value, however small.

That is it exactly, we work hard to accrue it, we want it to have value. The system that assigns value is so complicated, the ordinary user struggles to grasp it. Even having it explained like that. A family member joined and asked me how much she would need to invest for her vote to have value, I couldn't tell her, and she never did.

A bid bot never increases the value of other users votes.

According to this post, it will.

If someone votes on something that is not high-quality, the creator of the content should not receive any rewards. If someone casts the same vote on something that is high-quality, the creator of that content should receive rewards. The reward should not be determined by the vote, but by the quality of the thing being voted on.
A “vote” is not “worth” anything. A vote is a signal of value and rewards should only be distributed if other people receive that signal and then amplify it by placing more votes on top of it.

This post literally states that a lone vote has no value unless it's backed up by more votes. So say a lone curator with plenty of SP upvotes your post at 100%, but no one else does, you won't get anything still. (I say you, more likely to affect new/small users who don't have a following.) So if you want to be able to get that curation vote from a lone curator (not a trail) you need to get more votes somehow, which means something like using bidbots, or resteem and upvote service. I was talking about using bidbots as in paying them to upvote a post, not as in following the vote, but that is a good way to max curation, sure you are right and there will be plenty more.

That nearly 200 other users have collectively acted doesn't matter, because the only thing they are and represent is some pool of stake.

You are right, that is how it works, but that isn't what steemit are telling us in this post, they are saying the crowd is what matters, it's not me who needs the reminders that isn't what we have lol

As you can imagine, doing so is very difficult and inconsistent, because with 200 people is very difficult to find something they all care about and are interested in. They are 200 individuals with the interests of 200 individuals.

what they mean is if there is something that attracts the attention of all of those tiny minnows consistently, they can have an effect

But i'm not talking hypothetically, I left a comment about bully-flagging, and it was upvoted by over 180 minnows, and they did manage to have an effect, which was flagged away by one whale. I am not arguing with you, I was pointing out in this post, steemit tell us the crowd matters, and quality matters, and one person can't determine that, but that isn't how it works.

Normal people don't go out of their way to find content they think should be unrewarded. For the most part, normal people are most likely to run into comment spam, where they will deploy their downvote

People have been flagging opinions they don't like to hide them this entire time, and you must have equally seen the flag wars on here, where people disagree with what someone else says, and flags them because they have a different opinion, and how chaotic that gets, and how many other users end up getting "spatter flagged"

But I wouldn't expect it.

Why? I was all the way with you dude, but can't follow the logic there. It has got worse for me since this. Before it was some comments, now it is everything I do, because they can flag me without using their main upvote pool so can flag me more. It isn't automated, it is straight up bullying. People get hurt easily, and some of them take things very badly (FYI this person is flagged me because they were posting pictures of me on social media claiming I was their girlfriend, and I think mocking - I couldn't tell if they were saying the things to mock me or as sincere lies, either way I found out and when they refused to take it down, I reported it, it wasn't even on this platform, they have been steadily flagging me for months since).

Most of the flagging I see is for being friends with someone, for upvoting the wrong person, and over a difference of opinion. People end up "weaponised" where they have all this undirected anger, they can't stop the flags because there is no reason for them, and end up flagging back. Only recently I met a great user (user A) who found out a bigger user (user B) was doing something dodgy, they mentioned it in a comment/post, and user B flagged them. User A couldn't stop user B then flagging every comment and post the made. User B couldn't draw attention to it, because their posts and comments were getting hidden. They ended up so frustrated they flagging everyone who upvoted the recent posts by User B, as they saw those people as supporting user B. I totally get how it is supposed to be used, but that isn't the reality, and I feel like there is a problem being overlooked by so many people weighing in on this.

Well, you can always aspire to my place in the ecosystem. I say what I want, when I want, to whom I want, secure in the truth that I don't matter

Believe me, i do an exceptional job of not mattering in every way possible, in every other aspect of my life and wholeheartedly embrace the freedom of total insignificance. I just need to attain that level of meaningless here. I'll make it haha

Now that's an offer I can't refuse ;)