Witness Update, crt, July 2018 (Opting-out from Witness Work)
Fellow Witnesses Community,
It was a real pleasure supporting this community for about a year. Just got back from vacation (Without Internet and cell phone) few days ago.
Unfortunately, I have decided to opt-out of witness work and shut down my nodes.
The rationale is behind the costs of running a full witness node on enterprise grade equipment for months. Instead of support for running zero missed block nodes paid out of pocket, what I got - is an offer to pay in Fiat for a vote from whale (I am not going to disclose the name).
Although the amount was ridiculous, it points towards totally unhealthy state of the network, I decided not to support.
Not only it become impossible to earn (obviously not my motive at all), more dangerous, it become impossible to support the network without being part of the clans.
I would like to thank to all the supporters from #gridcoin communicty, especially @Vortac, and @sc-steemit who give their vote for free at the very beginning of my node. Unfortunately, paid votes is something that obviously took place, directly ruining the steemit economy. I found it dangerous, and definitely not going to support it.
Even further dangerous, I found my authorship article down-voted by plagiarism bot, just due to a fact it has been published on my personal website and few journals (Under own name). Down-voting without prior check is something that further ruins and discourage professional work / leaving very little chance to attract professional community.
Please take this as a positive criticism, and understand the rationale that by no means, I am going to pay to someone, in order to get the ability to support the network. That's something not only absurd but a direct attack on the network health.
Please allocate your votes given to me to someone else - and pick wisely. My best suggestion is to skip giving votes to witnesses who exchange them in between themselves. This would be the easiest way to prevent monopoly, leading to paid votes. Try giving them to these who are at the bottom of the list.
As for votes from myself to others, although not much important with current SP, I proxied them to @vortac
Until better days, my signing key is
STM1111111111111111111111111111111114T1Anm
Sad to see you leave
But I do understand your concerns with the current development. It's far from healthy.
It shocks me a little that someone would go front on and offer a vote for fiat, that's terrible.
Wish you well on your travels onwards and beyond!
Thanks Mate,
Your support was extraordinary from the very beginning here. No reasons to be sad, this only means more resources for GRC crunching :)
My votes are now proxied towards our trusted community member, and I will for sure continue to support #gridcoin community here / and other places.
I noticed that something was amiss because your witness is crossed as inactive on Steemian.info. I certainly hope that greedy whale isn't on my approved witnesses list, cause I try to pick them as carefully as I can.
Nevertheless, it looks like crypto is bringing the "monetize it all" future, with a price tag on everything. Apparently, many people believe that's the way Steemit really works, just check my wallet history (and it's actually pretty quiet now since the whole crypto is low). Overall, it could be a dead-end alley, but I've decided to ride it all the way down if necessary, especially since other alternatives are assuredly much worse... like following fake celebs on Instagram for max uselessness and zero rewards? No, thanks.
Thanks for proxying me - as you say it's not a large amount of SP, but I do appreciate it nevertheless. I hope you continue posting here from time to time. I'll put you on my autovoter list (for free!) if you do :)
First things first, let me congratulate for a Weds spectacle :)
As for the whale in question, I have been approached through regular channels (email) with business proposal under confidentiality of person in question before the deal is presented and I took it as a gentleman's agreement. The reason I took you as a proxy is exactly due to a fact you take things seriously.
I'm not going to dig deeper to determinate if there's a scheme of multiple persons involved - the last time I did that in telecom industry, there was a bit of tectonic movements, with whole forest being cut for lawsuit papers :)) So far, nose tells me, there's not much one can do, the eco-system of steemit needs to get fixed by itself. It could be a good thing. Others need to start acting seriously, rather then having a situation of me bulshithing toughs of crazy poet, you up-voting it, no-one gives a damn.
Totally got you both in regards to price tags, and alternatives. Business and money making is good thing, as long we are not cutting the branch we are sitting on for short term personal gain. We are in different positions from perspective of investment proportion, it's more the reasonable you are going to protect your investment here. I joined this place and take it more like some sort of civil responsibility. At the end of the day, I like having a place where I can express crazy toughs, since conventional media is usually managed by companies / scheduled posts etc. The bottom line is, I am also focused on making it more healthy just like you - only from the different objective.
I am definitely going to post whenever I have something that could be useful for others. That has nothing to do with auto up-vote. Even if you auto down-vote me :)) - Which you are totally encouraged to do if I post a bullshit :)) Your support was always highly appreciated, and more important - it was free :)
Not leaving, just stopping witness work, due to absurd offer that goes like:
"Give me $$$$, in order to allow you to support the network, that you are already supporting from your own pocket, then you can earn $$$$$"... right...shutdown :))
Nose tells me, $$$$$ projection is cumulative power of multiple whales, hence the answer to your question can't be given with 100% precision :)
Anyhow, thanks for the great support as always. This is most likely going to get debated within witness community sooner or later, as it's far from sustainable the way it is on the long run.
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