This post was inspired by latest Dtube Inspiration.
The topic was - Vote! for the Steem Proposal System!
An interesting topic but a reasonably simple decision for me but far from simple in explaining my reasoning.
I voted for funds to be taken from donations only, and commented on 's Pros and cons of two versions of Steem Proposal System post.
Here's why I voted that way:
This proposal system is only needed because steemit.inc have been unable to fulfill the blockchain development that they stated. So what we have now is political maneuvering by the more technical side of the steem community, to receive steem to do that work through the proposals system. However, it is only their narrative that they don't benefit from the development work they do on their own projects. These developers/witnesses are some of the most highly paid people on steem.
But I do agree that if steemit.inc aren't going to develop the steem blockchain someone needs to do this work. But who should pay?
To answer that question we should look at who was meant to do the work in the first place. Who ninja mined millions of steem before this became a public blockchain? Who has consistently failed to deliver on their stated deadlines? I'm sure that many devs are happy this proposal system was put forward. As for steemit.inc, sure they are happy with the thought that they will have to pay less to keep steem going.
However, if the workers proposal system is funded from inflation, many devs/witnesses will make lots of money getting paid for the jobs they take on, while limiting the growth of all our investments.
I'm not saying they shouldn't get paid for doing the work. But they should get paid from steemit.inc & other donations. At the very most if it's from the inflation pool, it should be from burned rewards.
The reason I am so passionate about this is that I believe steem already has it's USP.
Steem's unique selling point is getting paid for quality content!
Sure there are problems; circle jerks, bidbots etc... but these things can get sorted out if people make a concerted effort to ensure those behaviors are unprofitable. It is that USP, that will bring millions of people flooding to steem if mass adoption happens, but steem will only retain those people if the system is refined by then, and by that I mean all the problems ironed out from the top down. If it becomes a worse environment than it already is for authors, then I don't see steem succeeding. Or at least not in the way I would like to see it succeed.
The thing is, that most devs/witnesses aren't producing quality content or even bothered about content. They exhibit every intention to try and take this blockchain down a different path, whether it be gaming (full disclosure, I enjoy DrugWars 😉), business development (like using 'SMT' tokens to incentivize certain things like gambling models etc) or just moving steem away from the social content sharing model, into a more financially minded crypto model. I believe that if we as a community allow this proposal to go through with funds drawn from the inflation pool, then it will only be a matter of time before those funds are taken from authors.
That means you, me and everyone else who put huge amounts of time into making steem what it is.
It is content that drives this economy, not the witnesses or the devs, the content creators. The witnesses and devs only perpetuate/evolve the blockchain, which is the platform that the economy rests upon. It is the authors/curators who are that economy. It is possible that something else could drive the steem economy in the future, but I do not want to see it go that way.
These types of votes and proposals in this early beta stage of steem are very important to delineate how much power, we as authors, retain in the whole ecosystem.
I highly recommend that you vote for funds to be taken from donations only... if you value your content. To vote in the blocktrades workers proposal please follow the link below. It is very close and there are only two days left to vote.
Stake-weighted poll for two versions of Steem Proposal System
P.s. My views on this have been completely ignored by blocktrades and all the other devs on their post:
I am currently spending a large amount of my time on twitter promoting #steem to the wider world. Want to learn more about me and the PassionSeven77 project by @nathanmars? Check out my Znap7 introduction post to find out more and learn all about the #dtuberevolution. If you find my content of value, please upvotes/comment/resteem. You can check out similar work on my homepage . Thank you.

