Yes, I am still against EIP. I was ambivalent about 50/50 and downvotes, so if you count those as successes, great. But the curve has made many users' steem experiences much less enjoyable. You try to rephrase the idea of votes being worth a smaller amount - that they're still worth the same number of rshares, just those rshares are worth a smaller amount when applied to a post with fewer rshares, but people's understanding is still correct. You can say that you don't mind that it makes "self-votes" worth less and note what you think is the corner case of comments being worth less... but in the end, it boils down to: I am encouraged to upvote content I don't care about because the author regularly receives rewards at least approaching the threshold, and I am consequently discouraged from upvoting not only comments, but also posts I love because the author has no track record of receiving rewards above $4. In fact, prior to HF21 (now 22, I guess), nearly all of my votes went to content from users who I liked engaging with but who did not receive much notice from others... not because their content was bad, but because they, too, belonged to communities that didn't interest whales. These communities draw lots of people in, many devoted to building communities organically. The fact that they drew the attention of no whales is not a sign that they did not bring value to the blockchain. Just that their content wasn't targeted to whales.

We talk about mass adoption? That's who the masses are. Even if trending is doing well and bidbots are going idle, wherever those freed up rewards are headed, it isn't into the accounts of the rank and file.

Also, I dunno. I feel hard pressed to NOT use a bot. I never have before, but now, seeing my rewards (from real people who read my blog) get cut in half, makes me want to rescue some of their value for them and to use a bot. I tried it a couple times. It made me feel yucky. But I feel like I have to. I don't expect to get noticed by a whale. It's not my goal. I love the curies I've gotten in the past, but engaging with my growing community, hosting joyful joke-telling contests, and sharing fast fiction are the things I love. I don't mind if I only get appreciation from the folks who appreciate me, but I don't like that it is the wrong thing for them to spend their VP on now. That pains me, too.

Do you understand what the curve has done? Do you understand how this makes it harder to engage with new users and good content? Do you understand how this motivates people to just follow the crowd rather than embrace one's own quirky preferences?

It is very hard to be a happy non-whale, non-abuser in this ecosystem. Were I an abuser, I'd be perfectly happy botting up to just below the trending threshold. The return is better than before because so much is so far below the curve.