On big takeaway from your comment is that the system is now designed so that people invest in Steem Power. I did not think like that earlier. Thanks for enhancing my perspective.
Speaking about self voting, it costs nothing except voting power. No money is moving from wallet of the person who upvote. The upvote is the only way to 'mine' Steem from the reward pool and distribute among authors and self via curation rewards.
So, it is not anyone's money but the reward pool which should go to the deserving authors. Anyone who upvotes an author is in a position to earn curation rewards.
It just takes a bit of generosity to take the Steem out of the reward pool and give it to deserving authors (and earn curation reward for that).
I disagree with the practice of self voting. I think is selfish and comes from a place of scarcity. This platform needs less people with that kind of mindset.
"Speaking about self voting, it costs nothing except voting power. No money is moving from wallet of the person who upvote. The upvote is the only way to 'mine' Steem from the reward pool and distribute among authors and self via curation rewards."
While it may seem like this on the face of it, the truth is that voting value comes from the amount of SP a person has which in turn comes from investment. That investment comes with lots of risk. The value of Steem can fall, just like with any other cryptocoin. It is also trapped in the wallet because powering down takes a number of weeks. I could of course not invest in Steem power and give everyone the votes they want.
So, again the question is why would I invest in Steem and put it on the Steem platform?
I don't think you even have to talk about the selfish motives for self upvoting when that's what the curation rewards are for. Not only that, this also means you get some of that as well, on top of the reward you assign to yourself.
While there may be no way to stop people using sock puppets to hide their self voting, there is no reason why it should be easy to do, either, because it is antisocial. As ilya says, generosity is a key attribute that distinguishes this platform, before we even get to issues about how in no other field of human endeavour is self-assessment considered valid information without, at minimum, and inclement upon, the assessment of others.
Try running this platform without financial incentives. That is why people are here. We can all pretend that it's the quality content that drives it, or should drive it, but, as I have already addressed, people don't normally pay for online content, so why should people invest in Steem Power? No one has answered this point.
I've noticed a good number of these commentators have not invested in their own accounts. Why? And that's a really BIG question.
Expecting others to invest in Steem Power and vote for them whilst not investing in their own accounts is rather troubling, don't you think?
It's hardly polite or altruistic.
I have addressed your false dichotomy about self voting being a valid mechanism for determining the distribution in my previous reply to your comment. The Steem consensus logic is designed to reward your upvotes to other people through curation rewards. So you are being misleading and deceptive by failing to mention this.
"self voting being a valid mechanism for determining the distribution"
I simply did not say this.
Please, you have made a claim, substantiate it.
The corollary of 'Why would people invest in steem when they can't vote their own stuff' is its logical inverse in question form of the statement 'People only invest in steem to make money'. Is it not?
Just because you didn't say something didn't mean you didn't imply it logically.
And in response to that, I would suggest you look at users like @berniesanders and @r4fken who put a lot of money into steem so they could stop people doing things they think are lame. Right there, is a motivation for investing in steem that I already have stated, and I will not state again in my dialogue with you.
I will instead point out that if it were not for such a non-monetary motivation I would not be attempting to show you the folly of your thinking, I am doing this both for your benefit and for the benefit of the community to show that my arguments and justifications are far broader than any weak attempt to destroy them can be, and that you can't just shut down a discussion because you disagree with it.
This is precisely one of the beautiful features of this platform. There is nobody between me and you, this is peer to peer, and all (most) participants desire the record to be kept faithfully. This even starts to dig at fundamental architectural elements of blockchains as a whole.
"and that you can't just shut down a discussion because you disagree with it."
Again you are accusing me of something. It seem that I am having to defend myself against things that you simply think up. When did I try to shut down the discussion?
I have legitimate concerns and I have a right to air them. If you choose not to address them then so be it.
I wish you a good night or day, depending on where you are.
"The Steem consensus logic is designed to reward your upvotes to other people through curation rewards. So you are being misleading and deceptive by failing to mention this."
You have absolutely no right to call me misleading!
Since when did what Steem consensus logic is designed to do have any bearing on the points I made?
Again, you are trying to introduce false points to try and deflect away from what I actually said.
You were trying to close this debate without addressing this, which precisely is misleading.
Anyone can now also read through your comments on your profile and judge for themselves whether you were in fact misleading and in this assertion I am mistaken, or not.
It has a hell of a lot of bearing because your wonderous self-upvotes are part of the logic as it stands right now, which is why this is even being discussed.
"You were trying to close this debate without addressing this, which precisely is misleading.
Anyone can now also read through your comments on your profile and judge for themselves whether you were in fact misleading and in this assertion I am mistaken, or not.
It has a hell of a lot of bearing because your wonderous self-upvotes are part of the logic as it stands right now, which is why this is even being discussed."
Well, actually, I have addressed how and when I vote in some of my previous post and comments. I was recently complaining that there were no suitable posts to vote on.
Again, you seem to be attacking me rather than my argument.
@davidnx I agree to the extent that if someone has invested in Steem Power, he/she deserves to earn from that investment even with self votes if required. Thanks again for enhancing point of view on the matter.
But then this seems to go against the argument you are making. Did you mean to say "to SOME extent" instead of "to THE extent"?
Anyway, as I implied in my original comment, it is the system that needs changing and not the people in it.
I meant "to the extent". The fact that investing money in Steem Power was not part of my post's content, I did not share an opinion particularly about the people who have invested in SP.
So, I am not going against my opinion although I would happily do that if my opinion is proven wrong.
As I mentioned in the post, the system is responsible for the changing behaviors. I agree that system needs to change.
I would also like to point out that there are many people posting on here with expensive cameras or video equipment or going on expensive holidays and yet they don't invest money in Steem for Steem power. Why is that? They expect to make money from the fact that other people are investing in their own votes, but will not do so for votes of their own.