Firstly, you don't have to vote on this and I'm declining rewards anyway. Give you vote to a deserving minnow. If you find some then post a link in comments and I'll support them too.
This post was inspired by some interaction with user @atlantica yesterday. I flagged some of his (assuming it's he) posts that were just images copied from the web with no attribution or added value and self-voted them. I do that as part of the @SteemFlagRewards efforts to discourage what we consider abuse of the Steem platform. This sort of curation is always risky as you may get retaliation, as I did in this case. He has about 2000 SP, so it's a few cents each time.
He decided to take it further by writing some nasty comments on my posts, which he upvoted, and flagging others who commented. He also invited others to flag me although he's since edited the posts. We had some discussions and he seemed to calm down a bit. He also got responses from others. I am still getting flags from @mat1973 who I also flagged a few times for similar abuse. He is powering down, so that's not as bad now.
Steemit does not prevent you from self-voting. So does that mean we should do it? I have done at various times. Initially my vote was worth far less than one cent and I was desperate to get any rewards at all on my posts. As time went on I started doing better and decided it was better to let others benefit. Of course it's great to earn some extra money, but I'm lucky to not be desperate for it. Many others really do need any money they can make. Does that mean they should be able to just take from Steem? Well they are free to do what they want, but they have to accept that others may disagree with what they are doing. This platform is policed by the users. We're happy enough to get a big vote, but flagging is just as valid an action. Both are curation.
If you are part of @SteemFlagRewards you will get to see all sorts of abuse. My view is that if you are not adding value to this platform then you don't deserve rewards. This may be taking images or videos by others and not adding anything. Some will just create pointless posts with random or copied text just so they can vote it up. You will see some create lots of comments to do this too. I will mention that there are some much bigger players with many thousands of SP who do this too. There are few who will dare to take them on, so we really need the whales to deal with that sort of abuse. It's a question of whether they will.
There are plenty of other ways to make something here. Self-voting has limits. You really need the support of others and you can gain that by engaging with the community. A good comment can earn something and may gain you followers. Atlantica said people just comment on my posts to get votes, but I am choosy about what I vote up and it will only be a few cents anyway. If I see a person is just spamming then they are likely to get flagged. It's all about encouraging good activity and discouraging the bad stuff.
I do get quite a lot of automatic votes on my posts through schemes like @SteemBasicIncome, @helpie and @steem-ua. I have supported all those projects as they are trying to encourage good work here. To be honest I'd rather get more comments and hundreds of tiny votes that come via voting trails. I do actually want people to read what I write. I don't even check if commenters have voted for the post as I judge the value of the comment.
The money is nice, but I enjoy the social aspect too. I've met loads of cool people here. I've met quite a few in person. That was mainly at Steemfest last year and I'm doing it again next month. That has cost me a large chunk of what I made here in the last year, but I do it because I enjoy it.
I really think Steem can be a force for good in the world. There are billions who struggle to get by and this platform has the potential to help them earn a little extra. I know this is already happening around the world, but there's so much more potential. I'd hate to see it turn into a mass vote for vote scam. If that did happen then I'd expect the Steem price to crash. It could go up if people see real value in the platform, but the crypto markets can be fickle.
I could go on about vote sellers, but I've covered that before. I don't consider them to be doing that much good for the platform even if a few people are doing well from them. They have made the Trending page pointless and devalued the meaning of reputation.
The future of Steem and Steemit depends on us. We can make a dash for cash or we can build something greater. If it does take off then we could do well anyway. At one point my Steem was worth almost $100,000, but it's much less now. I can live with that as I never had the money in my hand and never expected to make so much anyway. I stick around because I enjoy it. I want to build my SP so I can do more to help others.
It's easy to find cynical abuse here, but you can also find a lot of good work being done. A great example is @adollaraday run by @pennsif that distributes donations across a set of good causes that they have checked out. I've just sent them some more.
I had all sorts of thoughts about this and haven't managed to get them all down, but I'm interested in your opinions. As I said above, please don't vote on this post. Support others.
Steem on!