If you cant win them join them as they say, I am not here to stand in higher moral ground, I just speak for what I have seen and experienced the last 4 years here. Let's say 3 cause I wasn't really active the last year on steemit. I will be here though and will try to support anyone that will come up with some sort of solution whichever way I can.
I do still vote outside of my own cyrcle and I do search for content outside of the trending page. Which trending page does not have the most important sorting parameter yet which is a)sort by votes and maybe if possible b) sort by comments. I don't see any dialogue happening at the top trending posts and without dialogue there wont be any kind of think tank formatting to get some ideas or proposals going.
Of course, it's the culture, and this was not meant as a personal criticism. I just don't approach it this way.
I know well enough to recognise the intend I can tell who is really concerned about the future of this site and your actions do speak volume, so don't worry about that.
I can be responsible with my downvotes and I do use them don't worry I do not abuse them, the well being of this community was and still is in top of my own personal gain of the extra couple of bucks I would be getting if I was to participate in the game theory aspect of things. But I cannot fight a whale not alone and hardly if I got the assist of other dolphins would make any difference. I think there should be a "Hivewatchers" thing that would had the stake to fight the whales face on but with great power comes great responsibility and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is hard to get people on board on this mentality. And sadly its been 6 hours since your post and I don't see any whales popping up to have a discussion for the matter. I am anyway I support your view of things and I understand that personal responsibility comes before collective responsibility. I hope you get the support you deserve but if I know you well I know you will go on heads on on your own whichever the case I will keep on supporting you as my witness as I do since day 1, You have never let me down.
I hope to see some whales jumping to this discussion soon. It is a very interesting topic. Keep safe man. I ll be visiting this post hoping for more engagement and more arguments.