If you have been around here for any length of time, surely you have shrugged your shoulders and raised your eyebrow, wondering how on earth can something that stupid / shallow / inconsequential ever have made it to the trending page.

I know I have. Pretty much every day.

And from reading comments sprinkled a little bit all over steemit, I know it is not just me.

Of course, the only reason the posts ever rank so high is that a whale of epic proportions has given them their vote.

Certain whales justify this behavior by repeatedly claiming that they must push forward a certain demographic, or otherwise steemit would be too uni-dimensional.

What they fail to realize - or perhaps do, but do not care, since their pockets fatten up all the same - is that by encouraging the grossly overpaid characters we see daily in the trending page, two things happen:

• More superficial fluff gets generated, as behavior that is rewarded tends to be repeated.
• News of their success spreads to their social circle, which - you guessed right - is filled with more of the same kind of fluff.

Said social circle then flocks to steemit and gifts us with even more inconsequential stuff.
Repeat cycle.

It does not take a genius to understand the impact this vicious circle will have - is having - on the quality of steemit content.

And what kind of writer will be rewarded to keep on writing.

The solution

Shocking, I know - reward authors based on the quality of their writing.

/endrant