I saw your detailed follow up comment and appreciate it, but I haven't replied yet do to other commitments. @furion is on the bubble for me (if you check my voting history you may see I have removed him and and added him at various times), but I still think his conductor tool is still adding value to the witness ecosystem, and I greatly appreciate it. My hope is he'll continue to add value here, but that will only happen if he's incentivized to do so.
I'm surprised your opinion of success for the Steem platform is so influenced by token price. When I bought in at $3 and $4 and watched it go to $0.07, I didn't feel differently about the value of the technology. Being a good witness has more to do with just understanding Steem (IMO), but also STEEM and the larger cryptocurrency ecosystem. Emphasizing the current token price is a poor way to evaluate the future value of a project.
If you want to run a witness account, then do it. Don't complain about what might happen. Do it and see what happens. Everyone takes a risk and puts them self out there. Some succeed and some don't. The point if witnessing isn't wealth redistribution, but it's a secure blockchain. If servers aren't being run securely and consistently, then yes, changes should be made. If they are, then changes are less about the blockchain and more about the individual and their expectations.
@lukestokes
It goes to the root question of what people expect from a witness , I have heard varying opinions but some playbook for witnesses would be great to see who is following good practices and who is not.
https://steemit.com/contest/@itstime/5-steem-giveaway-what-do-you-expect-a-witness-to-do-for-steem
My opinion of the success of the STEEM platform is only partially influenced by the token price but that is a lot in part do to the fact that because the technology and what has been built here is in a lot of ways superior than anything else blockchain related including EOS. I believe that because of poor execution, poor distribution, and a range of other factors the price isn't as insulated to these large drops like it should be. The fact that there is an incentive to be VESTED should partially insulate from large drops but there has to be other revenue streams to support the price in my opinion.
When you bought at $3 and $4 and the price dropped to $0.07 you were more vocal about the mountain of issues here. Your situation has improved here and you are in the money so in some ways it may seem that things have improved but from a lot of people's perspective things haven't improved they have just changed. During that time I'm sure people saw you as a complainer and Steemit INC probably didn't like the criticism. I never thought you were a complainer. I thought the concerns were valid. Now I'm a complainer though because I'm bringing up concerns to those in power.
When I jump off cliffs I not only depth check but I usually will jump after someone else jumped and when I see them come up safely I try to land in the same spot they landed in to reduce my odds of getting hurt. Running Witness and Seed nodes can get expensive and when you are out of favor or not popular among the few with power then it is unlikely to be profitable. It can become a money and a time trap so I have to ask myself does it just make more sense to focus on masternodes where it mainly comes down to having the appropriate amount of coins or take some chance that will require other people's votes. I just have seen so many highly skilled individuals who were great members of the community fail at the witness game and then ultimately devest their interest and leave. There is a reason for it. One example was this guy. https://steemit.com/@nonlinearone Had a Phd, was super knowledgeable about blockchain, was always positive but in the end he wasn't part of the club so these people leave one after another.
A person could certainly go broke campaigning when they could have focused their money and effort on other opportunities. There have been many times when I have thought about completely devesting my interest in STEEM and to stop posting here to protect my time and energy. I'm just a really stubborn person so I have a hard time quitting even when I should.
I personally don't think that the incentives are inline to make the changes this platform will need to really succeed so it is more about learning from what I perceive to be the pitfalls of this platform. That only serves me if I can join a team building another platform or if I can get the funding to build my own platform. Otherwise it is a waste of time.
Even if I thought there was a 30% chance that I could even get in the top 40 on the witness votes I would go for it but I feel the odds are much lower than that.
I think you may be misremembering your timeline. When I was raising issues the price was much higher. I'm happy to say the issues I was mostly concerned about have been largely resolved. The website is much more stable, Steemit, inc is communicating weekly about their efforts, and they are actively using the blockchain directly to do so. I didn't just complain, I gave solid recommendations, and I'm glad to say it seems they are following them. I also met the actual team and bridged the gap between my perception and reality. Negatively destroys teams and communities. Your suggestions so far don't seem very compelling to me, but I'm certainly open to hearing more.
When I look at accounts like @nonlinearone, I just see a lot of resteems and not much engagement (and clearly no commitment to the platform). Commitment is what matters. People want to support those who are still here and aren't threatening to leave if they don't get their expectations met.
I don't feel like I'm misremembering the timeline. It was sort of two separate instances. Late 2016 and 2017 you were certainly calling for more communication and calling into question why @ned and @dan were powering down and cashing out with no answer and you used the example of how as a business owner you mainly reinvested back into your business in the early years. Which I agreed with this and was questioning the lack of communication myself. It looked like a money grab.
In the second instance was shortly before Steemfest 2 where issues with the website were called into question and you wrote a post about eating your own dog food. Essentially utilizing your own software products internally or something of that nature. It was another good write up and then I do remember you meeting with the team at Steemfest 2.
So I consider some of the instances as two separate times spans that were about 8 months apart.
I feel like my ideas about the issues with STEEM and Steemit are pretty well thought out and I have really studied the success and failures of other social platforms.
In Sydney I had in depth conversations with two Block One employees about some of the positives and negatives of what has occurred with the STEEM blockchain and how those issues could be addressed. They both were very receptive to what I was saying and it correlated with their experiences on this platform.
I'm not being negative. We have some great examples on here of what has worked and what hasn't and in the end I feel like the platform that will end up working the best will be one that combines elements we see on Busy.org, Steemit, DTube, and DLive.
You would have to go back to 2016 for an account like @nonlinearone He set up a Witness node and was giving speaches about Blockchain tech in Phoenix and in Vegas and different places. He was pretty engaged. More recently he took a step back and powered everything down.
There are countless examples of this. We can't chalk everyone up who left as them being quitters or complainers.
Why did @daxon quit posting here but posts almost everyday on Instagram? Why did @mynameisbrian quit posting and power down his account? These are questions we have to ask ourselves. We can't just chalk all the attrition to people just being flaky quiter / complainer people.
As far as your last statement about people wanting to support those who are still here and aren't threatening to leave if they don't get their expectations met. Well it doesn't really seem to play out that way a lot of times. Is it supportive to people to just delegate their power to an upvote bot so that others can buy their vote?
So much of what I see says ........
Please upvote me and I will take those rewards and then you can buy my vote
A lot of these content creators that were fortunate enough to have solid support like @allasyummyfood have turned to that model. A lot of the witnesses and large whale accounts have very little curation engagement as well.