Maybe it's because there's nobody in the space, and figuring out the new evp is taking people some time, but right now curation is massively more profitable than delegating to vote-selling bots. I have one very simple bot that's returning 5x par. I wouldn't say I've given up, I'm just not particularly interested in maximizing my Steem holdings versus participating in a growing and diverse content system that empowers large numbers of people. That's where all of my SP goes - I'm leasing more for that than I'm using for curation experiments - and that's the mission that is going backwards with this change.
If there's no extrinsic value, it really doesn't make sense for me to spend my time here versus doing something that earns USD, regardless of how my rewards are distributed. 50% would definitely make Steem more profitable for me, but not really in a way that makes it make economic sense to spend my time here. What makes it make sense to be here is the mission of trying to build that diverse community of stakeholders, and the long-term benefit that may accrue from it.
Good points.