Thanks for the comment.
I was reading a post from berniesanders a while back and got my hopes up when he stated that he would begin curating again and possibly even send out his voting bot to vote for free (not paid-for votes) again. Unfortunately, that was the last I heard or saw of any extra efforts to curate the little guys. This morning I read about someone stating that they are now curating and so are others, so they are happy. It was a large account, so I'm not surprised that they would be happy. I believe most people know that voting on small accounts doesn't bring a large return, so obviously, everyone wants to curate the accounts they know will get large votes. That just concentrates the votes onto those who already get a lot, leaving the little guys farther in the dust than they were before.

Of course there have always been exceptions and I still cling to the hope that things will change for the better. That's why I'm still here despite losing two-thirds of my active followers. In fact I was trying to power up some more by buying more Steem to lower my average cost, but one of the big impediments to buying Steem is that it is so difficult for Canadians to convert their fiat to crypto. After spending hours looking for a reputable exchange, I gave up. I used Quadrigacx previously, and was lucky not to have any money on the exchange when it went down. Coinsquare has tons of bad reviews and the others don't have enough volume to ensure a timely trade. Not to mention that the fees take a good chunk out of your investment even before you get started. What crypto as a whole needs is a safe and reliable method to get people on board without taking them to the cleaners in the process.