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Judicious self-voting was originally intended as part of the system: having more stake meant you could bring attention to your ideas/messages. This would also give users a reason to accumulate Steem (there has to be a reason to hold Steem, otherwise it won't have any value, and there will be no reward pool to speak of). On the other hand, if you self-voted on entirely silly things, the idea is that you would get downvoted.

Such a simple concept yet so hard to understand.

@blocktrades, concerning the reason to hold Steem, I think commerce is the best reason of all. We need to get more businesses selling everyday things on Steem.

Yes, more business buying/selling with Steem is definitely super beneficial. That, after all, is the original design goal for cryptocurrency. But it's a tough nut to crack because it's competing against an entrenched competitor (fiat currency) and it's been an uphill battle for all cryptocurrencies to make a dent there. One of Steem's advantages over many other cryptocurrencies is that it has other reasons beside commerce for holding it.