RE: Sad, but not yet defeated.

You will do fine on the new proposal. You have no problems with accepting anything they give because you see anything as a bonus. Thats what they want you believe - and - it's worked. I don't have a problem at all with you holding this mentality. I just value my work more.

I think that if investors have come here thinking that they have a sure investment on their hands.... they came in with the wrong mentality.

Investors invest money.

Curators invest time.

when you have an investor that is investing their time to properly curate - then you can call him/her a curator. When you have an investor that is self-voting their own trash post just to make money - that is not curation. that is breaking down the foundation of the system that they want to make money on.

The large stake holders do have an advantage - and that has always been the case.

Now you - are in essence - saying - "give more of my rewards to them to make them happy. Not just my rewards - give more of EVERYONE'S rewards to make them happy."

ok - i mean. If steemit can find enough people like you to stay and be happy with that - great - you're happy making less - they're happy making more - and you're actually thankful for the opportunity to give more.

You are exactly the type of Steemian that they hope will stay. And if there are enough of you that will give up your rewards to make the investors happy - this will be the most brilliant plan ever.

Not much else to say to that mindset LOL except... good luck to you! :)

You are skipping over the mathematical reality here. There is nothing to give anyone without the presence of 'investors', period. If a service on Steem doesn't bring in investors then it is basically just something that causes the value of Steem to drop - there is no way around that. This is part of the understanding behind @oracle-d for example and why @ned stated that he wants more platforms to think in that way (and why Oracle D has a 2 million delegation).

You have no problems with accepting anything they give because you see anything as a bonus. Thats what they want you believe

Erm.. I don't really believe anything - I am speaking from the experience of 12+ years of content creation. Sure, I am here to receive rewards and I am also here because the system is uncensored (relatively). I am currently of the understanding that I stand to earn more and the platform stands to grow more as a result of the price of Steem going up, which could possibly be more likely to occur if curation payouts are increased. Maybe not, I don't know for sure. I am not in some kind of battle here - this is all an experiment. My own content is of the kind that is intended to help the world - I don't really need to be paid for it, but I do appreciate when I am.

I think that if investors have come here thinking that they have a sure investment on their hands.... they came in with the wrong mentality.

Sure, but they are going to do whatever they can to maximise their returns.

Now you - are in essence - saying - "give more of my rewards to them to make them happy. Not just my rewards - give more of EVERYONE'S rewards to make them happy."

No, I am not saying that at all. I am saying that they will find ways to extract the money regardless of the split of rewards.

If I make less money then I could do more curation. Do I have time for that? Not really at the moment. However, if curation does become as much of a rewarding process as authoring, then maybe I would make more time for it - which should really help the platform grow.