Yep. Last year before mass bidbots, when rando whale was the only real game and good for newbs who outgrew it eventually, it was a very different place here. Can it return to that now that they ate the "apple"? Uncertain, but why we don't just turn off self voting and end at least half our major grievances? That never flies and i get a million reasons why back, but its undeniable, kill self voting, and then people will have to work a lot harder to do those back door whale sales and shit. We can't really effectively kill bots ever no matter what anyway, we'll just make them less accessible, I suppose. and deterrents stop a large percentage of lazy people. The truly determined will find their hacks anyway, but lots less will.
Self voting, is a huge problem in terms of pool drain, why do we NEVER discuss that, and lean on the old trope, *well the investors, and their stake, and they can do whatever and well, after all those same whale investors are or "own" the top 20 who could make any of this true anyway..." blah blah blah
turn off self voting, watch magic happen. That's my prediction. (Oh but they will make sockpuppets!) and yep they will, some of them. But less of them.
Or you know, figure out communities, implement something like eos constitutions and turn people loose to screw it up for themselves in their own houses...
Basically, just do something already. Because looking at the roadmap, and talks at SteemFest(2), this place is always more becoming vaporware roadmaps bc.
2016 open
2017 open
2018 "more info about smts, the next thing we wont finish or do right here:[link]"