Lets be honest, none of the witnesses or developers have the financial resources to support the chain. This was a burning ship that was sinking in the middle of the ocean. No one was making anything from blogs, just a select few. All the witnesses and developers were doing was pulling money from the system to pay bills and maintain developments that always miss deadline. Steemit and witnesses were the biggest bears on the platform selling millions of Steem. This scenario could not continue, Steem take a mental toll on a lot of folks, I know folks who invested thousands of dollars and probably never get back that money, one guy cannot face his wife and another loss a house. There is a lot of sad stories. We may not be the typical bitconnect but there is a lot of like stories once you start asking question.

It's ALWAYS been like that! Did I not say that STEEM, like all cryptocurrencies, receive its value from speculation? Bitcoin is pretty much the only one that may have a value proposition that makes sense but only because the fiat system is so broken that a hedge against hyperinflation is necessary.

The only difference between the worsening situation since the third quarter of 2018 and the bull market before that was that the latter period (the bull market) saw Bitcoin being grossly overvalued and additionally sparked an altcoin rally on top of it. The price action is cyclical. Steem has already emerged from the deepest through and was well on its way to gain value along with the altcoin market before the Tron deal was published.

It's not the witnesses' job to pay for development or infrastructure on Steem. It's the speculator's job as usual on the altcoin markets. STEEM is a quasi derivative of Bitcoin. On content alone without any speculation going on, it would earn enough for the price of STEEM to be 1 cent at best. I did some calculations last autumn.

Even a simple new blogger who manages to get a couple upvotes end up receiving flags because some folks think he is making to much money, the signs and flags were waving at us, financially this could not go on any longer. Witnesses run a server and dumps to maintain those server, no money is coming in, think about it. Justin Sun deserves a chance to change things around here.

Bloggers on Steem are vastly overpaid. To monetize a blog in the real world is much more difficult.