There seems to be an extreme myopic perspective regarding self upvoting.
First, anytime anyone votes on one of my posts or comments, I increase their payout when I return and upvote my own post or comment. By doing this manually, just before voting closes, I forfeit all or most of the curation payout because of built-in payout curves.
Secondly, because I actively vote, I need more SP. The system allows me to build SP via a self-upvote. It works against the community for me to be negligent in building SP.
I'm also looking forward to the day when I have enough SP to delegate to community members.
Equally important, when anyone powers down SP and then uses Steem to make a purchase (of goods or services) or makes a Steem donation within the Steemit community, it increases the value of Steem.
Steem that is moved from community member to community member has a better chance of staying inside the Steem economy if it has benefits to the new holder as SP. Removing the stigma of the self-upvote would increase the value of Steem as SP and keep Steem in a strong internal economy.
Basically, anything that removes STEEM's dependence on the USD, or other currencies of any type, to provide value to the community is a good thing.
Markets whereby we can buy and sell real world goods and services with Steem is one way to give Steem real world value. The markets give people incentive to trade Steem within the Steem economy.
Providing extra incentive via the self-upvote can keep Steem in the Steemit economy and community even longer.
All of these community benefits and personal incentives increase as a member's SP increases.
The community benefits much more when we have more dolphins handing out more nice-sized votes but as the dolphin grows, they reach a point of personal negligence if that are not investing wisely.
The self-upvote is one way to keep Steem in their investment portfolio. This improves the likelihood that they will keep engaging in the community, keep handing out upvotes, and keep allotting delegated SP.
I feel like it should be obvious that self-upvoting is an incredible benefit to the community.
I'm sorry but I disagree completely. Self upvoting changes the nature of perception to those without Steem power, the majority. The holders of Steem power are absolutely tiny in comparison to the population of the planet.....the target for adoption. Self upvoting drains the precious reward pool when instead it could be going to excellent minnow authors or commentators. The best mechanism for distributing Steem is through rewards for quality posting. That is the purpose of Steemit.
It should be like this, but in the current situation, it's not. I would encourage self voting for 2 reasons.
Now in a related subject: People are against self-voting, but in the same time they have no problem with paid voting bots like @randowhale @booster @bellyrub etc. I think that all these bots are kind of self voting. Instead of upvoting their own accounts, they get paid to upvote other accounts. So they are draining the rewards pool for their benefit of getting paid.
What's a difference if I upvote my account to get paid from the pool, or to upvote someone else's account and get paid from that person and I use the public pool rewards to get rewarded?
I already wrote a post how a fixed Steemit should look like: https://steemit.com/steemit/@emble/will-steem-succeed-or-commit-suicide
I'm selling my STEEM because many people are against self-voting. I bought STEEM (with real money) just for that and all I got is endless flags. Now it's a little different because my voting power is not that big anymore. Anyway I'm leaving STEEM for all hypocrites who did not buy any STEEM.
Are you talking about demand for Steem in the short or long term. In the short term, I couldn't care less if weaker hands distributed their Steem, in fact it would speed up the process and make for a better distribution! ;)
I've got nothing against minnowbooster at all but it exists to profit doesn't it. If it does and the situation changes for the better for the majority and that happens to close an exploit or means of support, well that's what innovation is for.
I don't use bot self upvoting. If they were a service without profit, that would be better but there is no relation to quality in the use obviously. I see these initiatives as a search for ROI. Have some Minnows been helped? I think so.
Unless this is corrected, self-upvoting should not be eliminated.