"I think you misread what I said there. I didn't say it was the only benefit."

This is what you said:

" This benefit is not a benefit if they cannot upvote their posts as the former GUI had a tick box for."

You use words which simply only recognize a single benefit. What other benefit is implied in your statement?

"...it was the speculative bitcoin bubble that caused the receding tide to lower all the ships (cryptos)."

You imply that Steem's use case has no value, and it only has value, as do other altcoins, due to it's being a cryptocurrency like BTC.

I disagree. Social media has proved to be the most profitable business model in the world today. Steem, instead of enabling that business model, capitalizing on the technical superiority of the DLT to BTC, and the financial incentive the rewards mechanism creates (one of the most powerful incentives known), has instead completely devalued the society by allowing that financial incentive to be completely reversed by profiteering, dislodging users like spraying insecticide on a flea bitten dog. Steem isn't a shadow of BTC, and neither is any other altcoin of merit. It has it's own merits and faults, and the market specifically values it by those.

"That's crazy talk..."

OK. Try to sleep on a park bench in NY. The cops will beat you until you go away. Until the SJW shilling began this century in earnest, that was the common solution to homelessness. Also, you just moved the goalposts. I was addressing the necessity of sticks, not advocating a particular implementation of social policy. I then go on to point out that nature deploys sticks that discourage dysfunction, such as dysentery. Are you going to argue that nature is unjust?

Your reply isn't even an argument against my point. You just move the goalposts.

"I think if BTC was still as successful as it was at its peak. Steem would still be more thriving. Problem is, it created a lot of false expectations."

You simply ignore everything I said and assume Steem only has value because it's a cryptocurrency like BTC. This is not an argument. It's moving the goalposts.

"Self-voting is not "evil" I've seen self-voters who create high-quality content. If they have any sense of self-esteem and pride in their content then they will vote themselves."

Again, you're ignoring that self voting decreases the value of the token. That's neither good nor evil, it just is the effect self voting has. You then state I have no self esteem or pride in my content. That's bullshit, and I reckon you need to take it back to restore my assumption of your integrity. You keep ignoring my points, because you don't want them to be true and drive you to agree with my conclusions. You will not arrive at a rational position by doing this. You may maintain your delusions by rejecting these facts, but that will not enable Steem to rise in value due to rational policy being implemented. It will enable you to be increasingly bitter as you cling to your delusions while Steem remains worthless.

"I think this all depends on to what degree of investor you are speaking and if their self voting just to game it up. Or if they do appreciate their content and think that it is quality. It's not cut and dry."

No. You seem not to have experience investing. Capital gains is THE incentive that has driven civilization since prehistory. Profiteering, which includes violent raids by savages BTW, has continually been a drag on development. You seem not to grasp the opposite impact of these dissimilar practices, which I have repeatedly tried to explain, provided examples of, and I believe it's due to your continual undertaking to ignore what you do not want to hear.

The difference in skill between investors determines their relative success. The difference between investors and profiteers determines whether society benefits as a whole from their efforts. This is a fundamental principle and underlies all other aspects of civilization.

Experienced investors understand this principle, and thus are competent to contribute. Do you grasp the difference between corporate raiders and competent execution of a business plan that increases revenue from producing goods and services in terms of social impact? I haven't seen any sign that you do, and you always ignore this point. I haven't once mentioned morality or ethics. I point out the different impact of different practices, and leave the temporizing to you. Nonetheless you project on to me your conclusions of morality that you assign to the different effects I explain result from different actions.

Don't project that on me. That's all you. Since you dislike evil, and you account destruction of the value of Steem evil, you ignore evidence of the destruction the policies you support cause and accuse me of moralizing. That's not only disingenuous, it's dysfunctional. Stahp.

"Tell that to whoever coded in the ability for stakeholders to self-vote. Hey, they could easily code it out of the blockchain. They could code out self-voting. It wouldn't stop it from happening, I mean, people could easily get around it but.. It will make steem as a token immensely harder to sell people on..."

First, I do tell them this. Second, the Huey Long algorithm removes the financial incentive to do this, so it is trivial to stop it. Lastly, I have repeatedly pointed out that Steem does not attract investors because Steem is a bad investment, based on profiteering which investors intent on capital gains know is destructive of value. What we get instead are profiteers, who do not invest for capital gains, but to strip the value from the system into their own wallets.

You make this latter statement because you continually ignore the difference between profiteers and investors. The former destroy, and the latter builds. Builders aren't going to sink money in a platform controlled by profiteers. No one takes a long term stake in companies raided by Bain Capital Partners because it is obviously just stoopid to do. That is exactly the reason almost no one invests in Steem - except profiteers, and for profiteering purposes.

"Say you know a millionare and you'd like to see'em invest a few million here. How would you pitch'em? Maybe this is something you should do write up the right way to pitch potential investors. How get the crabs in the bucket the right way. ; -)"

The only way I'd recommend Steem to someone who valued my integrity would be in a manner that addressed the profiteering issue. Until the profiteering ends, Steem will never be able to generate capital gains because ~90% of the value created by the content is sucked into the wallets of ninjaminers.

Get the crabs into the right bucket, or they'll get out. Steem is a broken bucket that the crabs successfully flee en masse. There is no incentive for them to be here, because that incentive is a feint in the White Paper, and the rewards that are claimed to be provided to content creators are instead extracted by profiteers.

Fix the actual problem, and I won't have to recommend Steem to anyone. Competent investors will flock here when capital gains are potential because they're always watching for opportunities.