Why don't we differentiate between investors and curators. they are in fact NOT the same.
Well, they both invest their resources into the platform, whether that be time or money. They are both vested in seeing returns too. My understanding is that part of the intention of increasing curation rewards is to increase the chance that investors will curate.
An investor would be better served to STOP taking funds inapprorpriately and simple DELEGATING their massive power to places like Curie. who actually DO curate.
They would only be financially motivated to do that if curation rewards are significantly higher than they are, I think.
lo and behold - help PROTECT their investment by making the whole place grow!!!
Generally, from what I have seen, many of the 'investors' are not really behind the success of the platform from an ideological perspective or even a geeky tech perspective - they are generally interested in gains, short term if possible. I agree that investors should be thinking longer term - HOWEVER, if the development of the platform doesn't shore up their belief in it's long term viability, they will be thinking short term only.
The point is - just because you have given it away for free - DOES NOT MEAN that it isn't worth more.
Sure, yes - but something is still better than nothing.
The DRAW to Steemit was not just "hey we are another blog that you can post your stuff on" The draw to Steemit was - we are that - PLUS you can earn money! Look at all the ads for Steemit made by Steemians. THATS the first thing they push. that you can EARN.
There is nothing at all to earn without investors providing that money - that's just how it works. There needs to be a balance and since there is no Steem without investment, arguably the investors need to be given higher priority than the authors in some way. I didn't think like this at all when I joined here, but once I understood how the maths works a bit better this became undeniable. Authors will always be here as long as they can get paid - which they will do, as long as investors are here. If another platform figures out how to pay authors and attract investors better, then people will go there, so far I haven't seen that happen - probably partially because it's not a simple goal to achieve by any stretch of the imagination.
As far as the issue of the large stake holders having an advantage - they always have done - it has never been any different. The aim then needs to be to find ways to shift things around so that that inherent imbalance doesn't totally break proof of brain - which it has so far.