They are definitely not the same. Jerry and other groups make out as if if you follow certain rules (quality posts, engagement etc) you will prosper here. It is not the way this works at all. They are quickly writing their own rules, hiding a lot under the table but doing their best to promote the system as though it is squeaky clean. They will do everything in their power o keep the status quo even abusing features like the flag button, circle voting (assisting or turning a blind eye to those who are doing it for instance). It's all looks clean, they are either assisting to protect you and I from spam, scams, or generating quality content by curating.. it's all hogwosh. It's straight up thuglife. The sooner people act collectively, the better.
Capital centers itself around a single goal - profit. People center themselves around other goals, but it becomes hard to organise around such things. Hard, but not impossible.
This is exactly right. It would really need to be up to the minnows to band together. I think that was the whole point of the curation trail in the first place. It has become abused as well, but at least there is some good with it. I actually talk about how the minnow vote matters in my video here: https://steemit.com/voting/@littlescribe/ysuyl18g
You have a great collection of useful videos - I've bookmarked that post and will share when I have new friends joining! I like the idea of curation trails, and those votes can really stack up in value if the curation trail master is any good. I use curation trail only for one trail and fanbase for about 4 trusted people here: I constantly go after my votes, reading material, and engaging.. I consider my actual reputation could be spoiled unless I do this - people follow me, not the curator that I follow.
On the issue of whether our votes truly matter, I initially thought you were referring to witness votes ;-) in which case, this 2 year-old post by @transparency may or may not still be relevant - on steemit, all upvotes (even for witnesses) aren't equal. I still screen the witness-category diligantly, believing my tiny vote is still counted.
You sound like you are doing a lot of good research on here. You should talk to @zingali, a noob like you who is planning on doing some write-ups on witnesses. Maybe you guys can collab. You're both smart and driven on the subject. He'll be interviewing a witness soon for a story.
Yes, some research is more profitable