Everyone on Steemit is a stakeholder and influencer, no matter how large or small their accounts are. While smaller accounts may complain that their votes don't influence the network enough, I think there's a core activity that could use way more participation. That activity is called comment voting.
With the reality of user-interface constraints where natural scrolling is from top to bottom of pages, I think comment voting is absolutely important to improve the chances of the best comments getting processed by readers, Steemian or not.
I've been doing this since July 4th after getting around 7000 Steem Power - going through interesting posts to "manipulate" the comments section by applying votes on the right comments. This activity is later improved with the ability to conveniently apply different voting weights.
Imagine if there's an interesting, fresh post with a good amount of comments that are not voted. Even with the smallest amount of voting power, anyone is able to optimize the comment section for other readers and participants. It may seem obvious and trivial, but I think low-powered influencers are underestimating the game, especially with the not-so-constructive focus complaining about having low influence over trending posts.
Small stakes simply doesn't come along with high voting influence to affect posts that have already been touched by top influencers, but still doable for the comments section. $0.001 is still more than $0.000 and will be made more relevant by appearing higher of the page in the comments section.
With the same logic, post owners should also actively make better the comments section in their own posts - the best way to do this is to standby to "beautify the garden", at least 30-60 minutes after posting. But I'm still on a short vacation til end of the week, so yeah.. :)
I guess what I really want to say is that we should do what's within our control, and a good way is by voting comments.
Have a great weekend y'all!
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