Two more of my cents,....

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I've been reading about all these different options of how to run things around here.

I really like that we, the community, get to offer input on how the site responds to us.

I supported the change in powering down, but I'd have preferred to have seen a ten month power down rather than a 3 month one.

Pulling ten percent per month of what should be a earn/buy and hold strategy suits me, but the choice wasn't mine to make.

The voting guilds, and voting bots, are gaining in popularity.

I used steemvoter for a while but my voting average got too low because I had so many people that I wanted to vote for, so instead of reducing my voting percentage used to vote on everybody, I just paused it.

Since doing that my voting percentage has not really grown much because I can't stop myself from voting for posts that I like, except now it is posts that I have personally approved of, and not just random posts from people I like.

So, I have come to the conclusion that I'll just vote on my own volition, and on the days I know in advance that I won't be getting on I can unpause it, just to keep supporting the authors that I like, and maybe earn a few cents.

But, during all this deep thought, the voting guilds made their presence known to me by voting up a couple of my posts.

I saw all the big names on the site, apparently they follow each other around by remote control.

Now, as a beneficiary of these upvotes I was conflicted. 

Do I support the drone flyby votes, or would I like to see them follow my conclusion that it is better to vote on things myself?

What are the repercussions of all that whale/dolphin power echoing each other?

What ramifications can come from centralizing all that voting power?

Well, it certainly benefits the folks that make it to the flyby list, but it doesn't do much for those of us that don't get past the content screeners.

It does nothing for the random new users trying to figure out why s/he is here.

In fact, I would think that it would discourage the newbs from sticking around.

Why would I want to hang out if all the voting power simply echoes in the chambers of popularities and is unlikely to do more for me than upvote one or two posts before moving along? 

If they can only vote 40 posts a day how do you divide that by the 100's of 1000's?

And, really, what is 'good' content?

That subjective metric is as random as our users.

So, because @sophiamanimen said to me the other day, don't complain if you don't offer a solution to the problem.

I don't want you to think I am complaining, they are your marbles, do as you will, but I will offer my solution.

A random button that brings up a random post on it's first (for now?) payout.

If you like it, vote for it, if you don't pass on it and go to the next.

This will reduce the echo chamber.

It will not bring you the optimal curation rewards like a voting cult will, but, at least, your votes will be going to content that you personally support, and not content chosen by somebody else, potentially, solely on it's potential to pay out a curation reward.

If you haven't read some of my other content it won't be apparent to you that my posts are rarely if ever going to bring any substantial rewards to me, or you, as a curator.

I'm ok with that, I'm just here to make a record of being an early adopter of the path to the end of work as we know it.

Well, that and maybe to be a match that set a fire in the minds of my readers,....

Keep working, stop paying.

FBA