Being a supporter of BitShares, STEEM, and EOS I have thought a lot about if Witness / BP voting ultimately makes sense or works efficiently and how to improve it.
It is a complicated topic and for the majority of casual Steemians it sort of is out of sight and out of mind. To those of us who have been around here for 2 years and have the technical skills and community engagement to be a witness it is actually a continually annoying thing to "witness" what is going on. Pun intended.
I think the voter decay is an interesting concept because with STEEM I see some of these people that have continually just been up there collecting substantial rewards seemingly doing next to nothing or primarily working on EOS related stuff. I get why they would want to focus on that but wow what a great deal!!! Continually get funded passively by the inflation on this chain to fund their development efforts for EOS and then never actually fall out of the money because of collusion, people aren't paying attention, other ninja mine buddies....etc. Even I have realized at times that I have witness votes hanging out there for people who aren't really doing anything anymore. Just took away some more votes today.
Lately I have had a couple of friends on here that are pimping their fresh witness nodes but if they would have asked me if they should go through the time and expense to set them up I would have said NO. There is a very long list of accomplished and qualified individuals who unprofitably tried to be Witnesses. It makes sense.
Those in power will always seek to remain in power.
Who could blame them? Honestly I would be embarrassed if I was making as much money as some of the witnesses getting little to nothing done.
There are issues with EOS BP voting as well. Collusion / Sock Puppet BPs ....etc . The stuff is tough to stop.
My Solution
- Some sort of vote decay.
- Witnesses can only be in the top 40 for 6 continuous months. Once they have hit that threshold they will be placed lower than 40 and can either chose to continue to operate at full capacity or put their Witness in some sort of "Parked" status and will have to wait 6 months to be qualified to be in the top 40 again. During that time they can take their nodes offline so they don't incur hosting expenses.
That way other people have the ability to rotate into the mix and it will make everyone work harder to earn their keep for the time they are in rotation.
What is going on now would be like if everyone's contract in the NBA was practically a lifetime contract. This isn't the way things work in most efficient systems. If you aren't ready to ball out then someone is taking your place.
The Arguments Against The Proposal
Clearly those who have gained the power and are in those positions aren't going to approve a hard fork that would put that rule in place so it would actually never get done on the STEEM blockchain. Once again those in power will seek to remain in power. It would be like Putin giving up his leader role. It isn't going to happen.
Also some would say that it will bump out some of the most qualified people who are doing a lot. As an example it would bump someone like 
What Everyone Should Be Worried About
STEEM has been this blockchain that has been SO CLOSE...... for over two years but since issues like this were never really addressed it continues to be a problem. These issues make STEEM less attractive to new community members and investors.
Instead of addressing issues like the terrible initial distribution, Witness Voting situation, users like 
was right. The biggest threat to STEEM isn't EOS. It is GREED.
STEEM has sort of became a production testnet / funding for EOS projects.
OK I'll Say Something Nice
What has been built here is extremely hard to replicate. It takes a lot of talent and funding. If it was easy then someone else would do it but most attempts have failed and the ones that could be formidable competition likely won't be here tomorrow or the next day.
