and some other whales seem to have gone on a rampage blindly using their free downvotes to target anyone that is using some kind of bid-bot or Tribe-bot upvotes. While I get the downvoting of shitposts that get bid botted into trending along with combatting blatant farming abuse, giving blind downvotes to anyone that dares to touch any kind of vote-buying is just completely crazy especially with HF21 and the non-linear reward curve which leaves even mid-sized accounts totally powerless. The 2 downvotes I received on posts I worked over an hour on last week really make me want to go in full power down totally giving up on this platform...To start off, I don't take the downvotes personal (even though they do trigger me like crazy wanting to go on a retaliation rampage just like everyone that gets downvoted) and do in a sense believe they come from a point they are done with good intentions. I also am open to change my opinion if any solid arguments are actually presented for these downvotes.
So basically I've been on Steemit for over 2 years investing in Steem because I see (saw) some potential (most at 0.80$-1$ price), powering it up growing my account now to 10k+ SP. I pretty much bet on sports for a living and have been using my blog as a tool to stay sharp during the entire season forcing myself to make previews on every single match in the Belgian League while keeping very close track of my results while also sharing the bigger bets I take. I know this is a very niche topic which to some is highly valuable while for mosts it's probably like any other post2mine content on this platform.
Why I am on STEEM
Having a blog on Steem has done great things for me. Most importantly, my betting results clearly benefitted and actually enjoy the daily writing / having a blog aspect despite the average post taking at least an hour to make. I managed to make real friends and connected to some like-minded people in the process. Recently I also started to make my content into something of a small business as the bets I'm sharing are making people money to the extent that they are willing to pay for them using the copytip platform. I guess not many people on Steemit can claim that people actually pay real money for their content. I also put up some affiliate links from the bookies I personally use and trust trying to make it all more than just about the post-earnings.
Why I Buy Upvotes
I am not always the most engaging person on Steemit (most my engagement is on Discord), I blog about a very niche topic and don't have many upvote4upvote operations going on. This makes my average post payouts quite low given the fact that I have 10k SP. Most upvotes are self-empowered and I even have my own curation project (
The EIP and the non-linear reward curve make upvotes worth less on posts with smaller payouts which pretty much make it impossible for anyone to vote on those. Instead, it's far more profitable from a curation point of view to go for the ones you know will get a ton of upvotes. Those that do show support pretty much also get punished for it with decreased curation rewards. This makes absolutely no sense to me and buying upvotes is just a way to both thank the ones that give me support knowing they will get better curation rewards and as a reason for people to consider putting me on their auto-upvote list. Nothing more nothing less, none of the posts get even close to trending and if they did, the quality would even be far above the average there.
I usually get my posts to somewhere between 7$ and 10$ which isn't even reaching the point to overcome the non-linear reward curve using 
Unless you are inside of the 'curation circle' or making posts about Steem and how great it is there is an extremely small chance to actually get curated. I've been on Steemit for 2+ years posting consistent quality content always making a custom thumbnail but none of these posts have ever fitted the curation and I don't even mind that. I always liked the idea that its possible to empower yourself on this platform and value smaller consistent upvotes way more compared to having to hope for the rare whale upvote. "Honest Curation" is also a complete fallacy on this platform especially with the non-linear reward curve and it's not scalable (I can make an entirely separate post on that).
Just as an example of how curation groups work, making an ironic post on how great #newsteem is while what is written completely destroys the new system will instantly get curated because it's looking like another post about steem and how great it is which is the pretty much the success formula.
I can also fully get behind the reply of 
Steemit no longer my Home ?
I always considered Steemit the home of my blog and have invested a massive amount of time into it also buying quite some SP all very much enjoying it in the process regardless the price of Steem. After these ridiculous downvotes, I'm not sure if this is any longer the case now as I feel totally bullied.
which all gave it some real value for me. Steem now dropped massively in my personal valuation with the downvote bullies and I might just giving up like many others have already with this new system.
The sad thing is that there is not much I can do aside from making a reply to these downvotes. I wrote about how #newsteem would be a killswitch for all small to mid-size bloggers (HF21 Dolphin Killer) and the free downvotes along with the Non-linear reward curve are making it happen right now...
So I hope 
