My point there was that privately selling votes cannot be stopped, but we can take action to empower users to stop known accounts that specifically only sell votes from having any effect on our experience. I believe that the 'Steeve' UI for Steem does this already.
Bid bots make it practical to habitually buy votes, then use the profits to buy more votes - this means that those involved in this 'arms race' will always be faced with the thought that if they stop then they will lose their 'position'. They will have a way of dominating as long as they continue - the pattern is really quite similar to addiction except that it's everyone else who suffers more than the addicted person!
By implementing the voter muting feature it becomes possible for all of us to identify those accounts that violate our own limits in terms of their voting activity - whether it be because we think they sell votes or for other reasons. We can then be empowered to elect to remove them from our experience.
This ultimately might be called 'proof of the will and brain' :)
This is true however with downvotes it can be made unattractive to both buy (because return on the vote will be poor) or and sell (because selling prices will be poor) votes in a content-agnostic manner.
Your voter muting idea doesn't help the proof-of-brain function really. It might help make your personal view more useful. I don't disagree it is a fine feature, just not one that really helps address Steem's core problems.
I agree that downvotes have a direct effect, but they have negatives too:
You are right on all counts but I see no other method where expressing an opinion has a chance to compete with voting for return or more precisely to anchor things so that voting for return is somehow connected with opinons. With all their downsides, downvotes are still the only viable option.
I'm not really sure how downvotes can achieve the aim of allowing opinion to compete anyway, without a culture being crafted that actually values opinion (I wouldn't use the word opinion, since there are many posts that aren't opinions).
Maybe we will just see downvotes being put up for sale too ;)
I am starting to feel this might be an impossible puzzle wherein the inherent conflict of pure creativity vs. pure capitalist mentality cannot co-exist. The only viable solution, as with offline life, is for the hearts and minds of those involved to operate with shared agreements - which we do not currently have here. e.g. in the offline world, a musician might find they are struggling with the financially based demands of a label boss - whereas here, the more creative are met with a similar effect from those with Steem Power who simply demand 'roi'. But if the offline musician finds a label boss who also values music over money, then things can go well for all involved.
It seems the social aspect of a social network just doesn't really work unless those involved intend to be social. lol
When you upvote you have a choice of:
When you downvote, your choices are:
Review these lists carefully and then tell me whether you think it is more likely that people upvote or downvote based on merit/opinion.
Everyone has different motives. Users such as @v4vapid and myself tend to vote more to promote content - whereas many other users vote purely for financial gain. Steem presents a mixture of key selling points that both include financial gain and the ability to post transparently (uncensored) and in a fair way. We have here, therefore, a mixture of capitalism and the desire for free communication both competing for the same space. What combines all of these together is liberty, in a sense - or something approaching anarchy.
I personally upvote my own posts and then mostly only upvote posts based on content/opinion. I don't downvote due to disagreement (unless in extreme circumstances) and I don't downvote due to use of bots. While I might feel motivated to downvote due to the use of bots - I prefer solving the problem in a more uniform way instead of some bot users getting downvoted while others aren't.
In terms of the behavior of other users, I don't have accurate data on that - but I do know that there is a split between people who think that bid bots are 'valuable businesses' (lol) and those who vote based on opinion/content.
I don't think that really got at the point. Of course there are always users with different motivations. The common threads that runs through all are the incentives that are built into the system. People will respond differently to them but all respond in some manner. It's almost impossible, if not actually impossible, to participate in the system at all without doing so.
With that in mind I think should be clear from the above why downvotes are naturally much more effective than upvotes in getting voters to express an opinon, considering incentives across a range of personalities, motivations, etc. When you look at the current system where a very large amount of vote power (and a correspondingly large amount of the reward pool) is deployed in a manner that does not particularly (if at all) involve expressing opinion aka proof-of-brain, it is clear this outcome is tied more to upvoting than downvoting (aside from the overall scarcity of the latter).