thank you for explaining this. i think there is a lot of concern about bots because many people disagree. I've had well established people on steemit tell me they are powering down because of bots and scamming, and i'm not sure who to believe anymore.

some could be truth, but there could also be those wanting to protect their investment, or reactions out of fear. not everyone agrees on the right way, but perhaps the scary part is we don't know the facts percentage wise.

if seventy percent believe bots are bad, that is an uphill battle. if only 20%, this is workable. fear of the unknown is a challenge. wondering if no matter what i do, a few whales are consistently dumping steem to make a quick profit and thus devaluing it; this concerns me.

how do we know steem isnt dying? while numbers in PAL are up, each day i see PAL as quieter as far as chat and continuing users investing in steem. one of the downsides of a western education is it has trained me to look for facts. I could and do trust you, but what do we really know about activity in the last three months? perhaps an article for paulag would do better for reassuring.

the most important part for me is - why aren't people voting more? why aren't we stressing not only curation but better ways to accomplish it? and why are people stuck on curating the same thing for a profit instead of curating the people who really need help because their posts arent up to speed? not shit posters, but people who just dont have the skills or resources to post as well as the college grad who earns $50 for a post they spent two hours on?

right now i'm a curator and i have no flipping idea if i am doing it to the best of my ability. i've asked people and gotten some hints, but the reality is I often am put in the position of curating the same people over and over because it seems that theres just not enough new posts coming out. i don't know if this is true, it's just my feeling on it. we need a way to measure the market, imho, to see how many creators there are, how many curators, how many developers. because if we arent maintaining a good balance, we are perpetuating a myth of steemit as a viable platform.