indeed you gain my respects.

Thank you, I guess we all get attracted in the beginning for the $. but I learned along the way that reputation, honesty and transparancy are key.. one day we will all know that.. and yes I did also things I don't do anymore.. anyway if you admit you can learn..

Thats very true !! For now you need to pay for your post to be upvoted

Thanks for writing this, @stellabelle. It's wonderful to see someone remind the Steemit community about integrity and reputation.

Great post and I often ask myself the same questions.
Nevertheless humans will always Ben humans and most of them will try to maximize their return. Let's be honest, most of us are selfish in some ways.
Therefore, Steemit needs to adapt its way of rewarding the community in another way.
I use bots like most of Steemians but I believe they are killing the spirit of the platform...
I wish they would close them down and reward more curators or people that allow their time to comment/interact because this is what Steemit is ALL ABOUT! 
Take care @stelabelle.

Well done , I  heard that money is honey , nowadays money is everything , you can buy even love by money . Or if you can not  buy love, but you buy the things that you love it .

It's sad to see that whales are selling their upvotes 
But it truly shows somehow that steemit.com has a few flaws 
I hope something will change in the future so selling upvotes won't be allowed here 
But I don't know what to say because as I know if you Invest heavily in steemit.com then you kind of get the right to do whatever you want with your Steem Power 
But normally this platform is about blogging earning by posting,  commenting and curating good content
Thank you very much for Posting 
Much love

In my opinion, this is what the blockchain is about.  Helping others, even as you help yourself.  That's why I hate bots.  There's no "human" interaction with them, it's just "upvote this, upvote that," but there's no feeling behind it.
I want to vote for what I believe in and for people who can bring great content.

you finally speak out what i had in mind for some days now, really appreciate this post👍

Hi @stellabelle, i feel this is based on personality, @snowflake is entitled to what he want, and nobody including me, can judge him. 

One can not be a bussiness man and still mantain reputation and the masses love, whatever he chooses he is entitled to it, although its true that where he is, is as a result of the upvotes of people, however whales are ontop of the food chain. They choose who tell want to upvote and do what they want with their SP that is why i feel @surpassinggoogle is a not just a whale, you should know that too.

If you call the whales attention they will still stress out what i have deduced, he has a right, and this rights should be respected by even minnows.

Thank you. More like you. You have to understand that if newcomers are not encouraged for good posts, people will start to leave.

Thanks for your integrity and honesty. There are some worrying trends appearing in recent months with greed rearing its ugly head more and more often, I guess it's human nature but it saddens me to see it here.
Let's hope you can have some productive conversations.

<sub>Edited comment:</sub>

Wow, that's *(concerning to me)*. *(I would like to see a higher)* regard for the creators who are working hard to bring Steemit to the next level! 

*(In order for a healthier platform with solid future success, I'd like to see some restraint with this type of voting)*

I'm going to link to [my previous comment](https://steemit.com/deathspiral/@stellabelle/is-steemit-in-an-economic-and-social-suicide-death-spiral#@raised2b/re-stellabelle-is-steemit-in-an-economic-and-social-suicide-death-spiral-20171106t024628621z) on your other post because it's particularly relevant here as well but very long.

The fact of the matter is that you get what you incentivise. Clearly we are seeing exactly what is being incenitivsed by the Steem blockchain at this point in time.

Good or bad, it will be what it is until the current incentives are changed.

The good news is that it is a living system and we all get to play a part in shaping it's future. So when we see something like this that doesn't align with our vision of how we'd like the system to operate we can have these great conversations and make the suggestions that can ultimately take us where we want to go.

The only problem is that if the system is designed to mostly rely on people's integrity and honesty, it is very unfortunately a broken system from the very beginning. 

A good system is one that enforces honesty and integrity or at least encourages it. The systems based solely on trust and discretion of it's members do not survive much in our society or in our species for that matter, unfortunately.

Pareto principle works here too actually (20% / 80%)

It is very good that you brought up this subject. Maybe someone would listen to you. But i saw it right away, a system where your votes and power can be bought, sold, rented (delegated) and so on is a corrupt system. As they say if "you build it, they will come". If the system allows for abuse there will be always those who will exploit it to the fullest. So it is the system design that should be thought through to the core to close those loopholes.

The moral issue still remains, but unfortunately on a large scale it is more academic until the system is fundamentally fixed.