The fact is that most who came viewed this as an extraction tool. I see nothing in the upcoming fork that will change this. When I joined, Steem was much higher in market cap rating and was in the 3-4.00 range.

You see lots of talk about community, yet not so much action in putting ones actual cash in for the community. I see lots of posts recently on getting "paid" in several new coins like Pal, which is laughable. If no one is buying the main coin, who is going to buy the new coin that isn't even listed on any exchanges (which costs millions) and still faces the same issues that the main coin no one is buying faces.

It is cool to blame the whales, but honestly who would want to invest in a coin that's history is one of more supply than demand resulting in devaluation. I had invested (I powered down most of my stake, stopping it last week) above 2.00 and again around 1.00, and if not for spending way to much time as an author would have seen this experience as a net loss. I can't imagine under the current dynamics anyone with serious money wanting to risk such a devaluation.

They can brand it new steem all they wish, but if the masses don't understand this system only works if you are looking to make other ships rise, it will continue its trend downward until it is worthless. Good luck finding witnesses at that point willing to lose money monthly to host nodes.

I figure the founders and the first to join will be okay as they have extracted a lot that has most likely been converted into Bitcoin and other quality projects, as well as cash. Despite leaving more in my wallet than I bought, I also will lose nothing but my time investment if this goes belly up and what is in my wallet becomes worthless.

But when I see the many of the few doing well using this as an extraction tool (such as mepatriot with his daily churn of familyprotection posts) I see little to indicate there is anything new at all. The same old selfishness and greed in operation.

At this point I have to wonder if they would be better off doing away with any author/curation rewards period and giving all the reward pool to stakeholders and projects as in incentive for investment. The masses have proven they are uninterested anywhere close to soaking up the daily amounts being dumped on the exchanges. At least under that scenario it might give investors a reason to invest, and there could be a tip feature where quality posts would earn if someone vested cared to tip with no monetary growth from such an action (in fact, it would cost them).

End of rant, lol.