Let me start with an analogy. Let’s imagine a government, a system of control and influence. Whereby anyone, with the right ability can enter and become part of the parliament, with the hope of making change and helping those around them. To do so costs their own personal money and a lot of their own personal time. Within the parliament, there is a seated majority of lords, who because of their voting power and influence, can decide who can become part of the club and who cannot. Not by voting them out, that would be unfair, but by controlling the distribution of wealth, through their vote, and making sure they maintain their seat as a Lord.
This Will Upset Some People!
The following is based on personal experience from being a Witness, being part of that community, working with those within it, hearing some of the views and opinions of other Witness owners, as well as their thoughts on new Witnesses, popular well-known Witnesses and the development of STEEM.
The following will likely upset some people, notably those in the higher echelons of the Witness league or fans of shall we say ‘celebrity Steemians/Witnesses’. Therefore, I expect a good amount of denial, many will say I have it wrong, some may even choose to attack, or defend by offering statistics, personal viewpoints, or just blind me with science. All of which I welcome, but I do feel that a discussion needs to be had, it’s an uncomfortable one for me, because I know this will likely result in the death of my own Witness Server, as I lose votes 
You could say, that I am biting the hand that is feeding me. Depends how you look at things, for now, for me and from what I’ve seen over the months, the system allows for too much influence and control and a continued greater desire based on financial reward for those to remain at the top of the Witness league table.
STEEM Witnesses - What They Do!
STEEM Witness Servers provide the backbone of the blockchain of STEEM. They are an important and intrinsic part of how STEEM works, certainly without them, STEEM and steemit.com would grind to a halt. The reward of being a Witness, other than the fact that you are helping a great and growing community, is that you are rewarded STEEM Power for processing blocks. The higher up your position on the Witness table, combined with the power of your server, the more blocks you process and more STEEM Power you are rewarded, which can be powered down to convert to STEEM, which as we all known can then be used to buy services from those that accept STEEM, or even convert STEEM to other cryptocurrencies. Those that are in the top 20 positions (the Lords), get the majority of the blocks to process and subsequently the lions share of the STEEM Power as a result.
It's Tough At The Top
Many of those in the top 20, gained their positions early, whilst STEEM was developing and growing just a couple of years ago at most. Over time, many of those have gained such an enormous lead based on their MV (Mega Vest) position, which determines what position you hold in the Witness list, therefore determining how many blocks you process and STEEM Power you are rewarded. The amounts of STEEM power generated can be substantial, with those in the top 20, having accumulated STEEM wealth in millions.
The simple fact these Witnesses also have an incredibly strong vote, and influence on who can and can’t reach these upper echelons of the big league. In many ways, they have no interest in giving up their position in the top 20 and given that many of them have such a strong position within STEEM and in the top 20, it is not within their interest to vote for someone, that could potentially later take their position from them. From what I have seen, the higher up the list people become, the more self-serving some have are as a result, through their own desire to maintain that or increase on, the position they have. The last thing they want is some young upstart coming in and upsetting the Apple Cart.
Do As I Say (or They Say) Not As I Do!
In fact, this happened recently. Someone, with no prior knowledge, who then took other peoples content and guides directly from SteemIt.com and sold them as cheap courses on Udemy and other outlets. Given that Cryptocurrencies are popular, the uptake of those courses was huge. Resulting in enormous profits being gained by this person. Ironically, one of the first courses this person produced, promoting STEEM as a vehicle for wealth, he himself, hadn’t even set himself up as a Witness, despite promoting Witness setup as a means of wealth creation. Therefore, he was charging people $10, for information that was freely and openly available on STEEM, showing the wealth in STEEM dollars gained by others, and how you can setup as a Witness yourself and do the same for only $20 a week, when he himself hadn’t even earned a single STEEM dollar at that point. Rather cleverly, he used the course to push further promotion of that and other courses along the same lines, and to encourage those that took the course to setup a STEEM account and vote for him once he had become a Witness. Several months later, he did just that, shot straight up to the early 20’s on the Witness list (https://steemian.info/witnesses) and is earning a good amount of STEEM Power in the process; recently writing an article showing off this very STEEM wealth. Some say that he puts a lot back into STEEM, and in some regards, he does, but a lot of what he does is self-promotion. Videos and posts on Steemit.com and YouTube tend to side along the ‘how altruistic am I’, but being used as a form of self-promotion. The success he has gained from using other peoples content and re-writing it, or more to the point having others re-write it for him and then rebranding it and promoting it as his own is legendary. Even recently setting up Patreon’s for access to all his content, and himself for $295 per month. There is a fine line between what he is doing and copyright infringement. It almost comes across as narcissism, with his music videos lasting 2-3 hours each– using equipment he neither understands or having any musical skills whatsoever (having a degree in Music and worked as a producer/engineer myself, it almost made me ears bleed). Or, doing Stand-Up at a STEEM event. Mostly attended by those that were introduced to STEEM through his courses. Not to mention, charging people for STEEM accounts, which are free, but that’s a whole other debacle.
The above I am sure will get me a lot of hate from his most ardent followers and fans. Perhaps some may come at me and say I am jealous. To which I would simply add, that I always admire those that do and achieve in whatever that maybe. Those on the other hand that achieve success on the coat tails of others hard work, claiming it as their own, I have a lesser regard for.
As I am sure you can imagine. Within the Witness community, it caused a huge amount of upset. Which is understandable. Some of those in the Witness list do produce tools and services that help those that are either Witnesses or involved and work in creating content for Steemit.com. The content that was being used in the $10 courses, was in many cases written and produced by these very same people. They have been doing that since the very beginning and it could be said that they deserve their position in the list, but as I will point out shortly, this hierarchy needs to be addressed. Having spoken to many on the Steem Witness Chat. This person really isn’t popular at all and there is a good amount of hate, as it’s bringing in people, with no experience and then setting themselves up as Witnesses under the belief that it will make them wealthy, just like Jerry said! There is a lot of hate and frustration in having to deal with very basic, banal questions from people that have no experience with Linux, Server Admin or anything like that.
How Can We Grow?
In some regards this is a double-edged sword. For the network to grow and to cope with demand, there is and will be a need for more servers to deal with the processing of the blockchain. It could be said that a willingness of those wanting to setup as a Witness, put money upfront (around $70 per month) and help the processing of the blockchain, is something that is needed and should be encouraged. One of the conversations I had, was filled with a good amount of frustration from this well-established Witness, and the desire to have the system policed more. To perhaps limiting access and not making it so easy, in server entry terms and technical server/Linux knowledge to become a Witness. Perhaps, as suggested to me at the time, to make it harder to enter to keep the NOOBS out. My argument at the time, was that surely those willing to put $70 per month or more to run a server and have a willingness to work as a Witness and update the server and keep it running, is something that should be encouraged, providing they understand that it takes hard work to get to a point of producing enough blocks to be earning anything at all in STEEM Power. Considering that the network is growing quickly and will need as many Witnesses as it can get. The response and the rest of the conversation couldn’t be printed here.
Cassey Kassem's Top 100
There are many on the Witness list from 100 down to 20, who really want to claw up, to be able to produce more blocks and earn more STEEM Power. There is only room for 100, so someone has to move, drop down or drop off. The list fluctuates based on votes and those voting having the MV power to push that person up. Those with the larger MV votes are those in the top 20 themselves, as well as some of those that create content too. There is a hunger and a need and thirst for the Witness to climb up this ladder and there is a desire and self-interest with those at the top to maintain and keep those below where they are through the control of their votes and the influence of those that know one another to control en-masse to maintain those positions. It would be foolish to believe that this doesn’t happen. Any form of power where a reward is given, is not going to given up lightly and those in that position will eventually club together to maintain their own positions through the use of a vote or whatever means possible. This happens in every aspect of perceived or given power where there is the potential or a given reward to maintain that.
The King Is Dead Long Live the King!
Which is why I feel that the current system of how Witness process blocks and the rewarding of that should be overhauled. Quite simply, the voting and position system needs to be scrapped. If you think it shouldn’t then you have missed my point entirely. As a replacement, I feel that processing blocks should be spread out evenly among all Witnesses. Making the system potentially run smoother and be fairer in terms of reward. There should be a minimum specification setup for each server and standardised Witness installer, to make sure everyone’s system is both powerful enough to work smoothly, but also running the required services to enable to process blocks effectively. Now I don’t imagine for a moment that this is easy to accomplish and probably never will happen, but for now, how the system works is not for the betterment of STEEM, the community, those that look to become Witnesses and the future of the STEEM blockchain as a whole.
