I do understand the desire for popular witnesses. I only hope I can convince you that witness are not here to be popular, they are here to ensure the security of the network.
I do upvote minnows quite often! I'm a huge supporter in the Japanese community particularly. Ask people like @knozaki2015 or @kinakomochi how much I've helped support the @steemit-jp community with curation tools :)
I dont think you need to be popular at all. I just look before voting and seems all witnesses only post every few weeks/months. Some on the list havent posted ever....if they dont believe in the platform then hard to believe in them
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