Please allow me to speak freely.
When I registered, I knew the whole system is practically still in Alpha and that the devs are still constantly tweaking under the hood, which to my great surprise includes updates to the database itself; so the whole system is still quite fluid, understandably.
But some of the reactionary changes that you hint at, or have already implemented (the rep system, for example) at the behest of a choir of complaining users, objectively give the impression that The System cannot be relied on. Users constantly have to live under the fear that they wake up the next day to find a major change implemented without any forewarning or notable discussion, and so far, at least in the last month, these changes have summarily been to the detriment of the ideas of free and open markets and have instead been restrictive and belittling in nature.
So reading your most recent musings about votes on votes leaves the impression that you don't really trust the users and don't trust your own system and its ability to self-regulate as a liberal economy ought to and find an equilibrium once the big "excitement" has been damped. That the devs are willing to tweak and "repair" the blockchain to death until it is plain simply too complex to allow for freedom and anarchy and has become a bureaucratic, metastable domino monster structure of "Code Law" nobody really understands anymore or can rely on.
It sends a message of cowardice, of fear of loss of control. Have some cojones, some trust in your own ideology and allow the system to find itself out, to self-regulate organically and naturally, to slip out of your control, instead of intervening with more code each time a clique great enough make noisy demands for ways to introduce the oh-so-soul-soothing censorship and moderation through the backdoor.
You manage perfectly to ignore the crowd who suggest that the interface is a major pain in the lower back because it still doesn't allow "circles", "tag subscriptions", "favorites", costumizable streem feeds, powerful filters and other simple tools to make curation more enjoyable than wading through tons of the created irrelevance - simple, and seemingly easily built tools one must find off-site in the work of independent devs such as roelandp, jesta, mauricemikkers, blueorgy or xeroc.
So it is becoming sort of "suspicious" that micromanaging the backbone, the blockchain, in favor of regressive, authoritarian and reactionary demands, even spending time thinking and pontificating about it, takes precedence over a more fluid, liberating and empowering user experience which could easily circumvent the problems all the interventionism is trying (and failing) to solve and raise the value of Steemit for simple, average users who are not so foolish to expect to get rich "steeming".
And it is a pity I must add that this is not a rant against you or Steemit or meant to be a personal attack in any way - that I am merely fulfilling my promise not to be blinded to the dangers of Steemit, to remain intellectually honest and scientifically sceptical. I express my enthusiasm for the cause and my hope for the success of the experiment by alerting you to a very dangerous pitfall: overregulation.
It lowers my own perceived value of Steem much more than its dumb market cap, and I cannot imagine I am the only one having a bad feeling about the way the platform seems to be going with this; and I almost feel bad for hoping "Akasha", "Yours", "ethereal" or whatever comes next prove to be more honest, straightforward, reliable, open, participatory and anarchic systems.
RE: Negative Voting and Steem