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So, Minnows: how are you liking the increased influence given to you by HardFork 19?

Isn't it cool that your vote went from being worth $0.00 to $0.09?

Look...

I know that with this change you feel like your vote is very precious now.

And it's true -- your vote is precious. But here's the thing: your vote was always important.

When a content creator such as myself posts something on Steemit and it makes a good amount of money, that's one way to know that my content is liked and well-recieved. However, the better and more consistent way to know if I'm making good stuff is by the number of votes, even if the dollar amount isn't very high.

I've noticed that the average number of people voting on my posts has gone down. And as much as I'd like to think that it might just be the content I'm blogging about is less interesting to you than it was, say, a month ago -- it simply doesn't make sense with the amount of real followers that I have.

This, along with other trends I've seen on Steemit, lead me to believe that the Minnows are voting less.

We've been given a great gift (I'm a minnow, too), and we are not using it.

Use it or LOSE it

HF19 was intended to level the playing field.

Many users were complaining that whales had too much influence and too much power. People would look at a post that had over 100 votes but made $5 and think to themselves:

If minnows had more influence, my $5 post would be worth $500.

And that's true.

When HF19 launched, I had dozens of pending posts with a hundred votes or more on them that were originally worth maybe $10-20 and suddenly jumped to over $100.

Everyone was celebrating, drunk with their own power!

Then they woke up the next morning with a hangover and suddenly didn't know what to do with themselves lol

Minnows, listen: Steemit is still in beta.

This HardFork is a test.

It's a test to see if you can actually handle having more influence. It's a test to see if you the general user-base is responsible enough to be a potential whale.

And right now, you are failing the test -- you're failing it HARD.

HF20 will give power back to the whales

At this rate, anyway.

And that only makes sense.

If minnows are coveting their vote power, the site is not going to survive. The developers know that. I mean -- do you think the developers don't know that?

What we are seeing now is that minnows cannot be trusted with more influence.

Basically, you've been given the opportunity to have more influence with less investment, and by not using your influence -- by coveting your vote power -- you are telling the developers that you don't actually want that influence.

By not voting like you used to, you are telling Steemit that the free-market approach is better -- that it really is true that those with more skin in the game (meaning: more Steem Power) are the ones to trust with the influence.

Want to retain your power? START VOTING!

If you don't start voting, you're going to lose it all.

If you don't start voting, HF20 is going to give all of that power you are coveting back to the whales, and this whole experiment will have taught us that minnows cannot be trusted with power.

This is a warning to all the minnows out there: HF19 is an experiment to see if you can handle having more influence, and when you don't use that influence you are telling Steemit that you don't actually want it.

So start voting like you actually want influence.

If you use it, Steemit will look beautiful!

If you, the minnows, start voting again, then Steemit will be such a lucrative place.

It WILL be like it was the day of HF19.

It WILL be true that accounts with fewer followers and hardly any SP will be able to make decent money.

We COULD have a Steemit where the least among us have the power to make a difference.

But we will only have that if you start voting!

So start using your power.

Start voting up your friends. Go search the "hot" and "trending" and "new" tabs and upvote as much as you can.

Because if you don't start using your power... YOU WILL LOSE IT.

Follow me @shayne