Hello again! Let me respond to your appeal today...

You are way ahead of me in terms of business management. Not because I am less educated or ignorant, but because my priorities are different. I did not start my own business to maximise profits and achieve optimal growth. My goal was the freedom to work for people I like, whose values I share. This also includes a certain contempt for the pursuit of wealth. My customers live quite contented and, in many eyes, perhaps modest lives – like me. And that's great! These are the important parameters of my business. That and the good and secure livelihoods of my employees. Constant growth and business optimisation would have ruined my concept.

Now, I don't see Steem as a company, and I don't see my presence here as work. Steem is a decentralised platform that is available to people and is used in many different ways. In many cases, it is used well and sensibly, in others... well, we all know. Steemit Inc. is the operator of this platform. It is a company. It operates according to business principles. It is not my place to judge this, because it has nothing to do with what happens on the platform. What is done here is up to the users. Up to each individual, up to the Communities in which they organise themselves. They, in turn, must not make the mistake of seeing themselves as a company and acting according to business principles. The Communities should be exclusively about the social component; about attentive assistance, support and encouragement.

I am not entirely alone in my view, but we are in the minority, I realise that. Unfortunately. I am very sorry about what has become of what was actually a great idea for a decentralised online platform. A carbon copy of Facebook, where freedom of expression and general goodwill now depend solely on whether you resteem the right posts, belong to the right club, burn the right amount of Steem and post sufficiently long comments on predominantly stupid and interchangeable posts.

You are right to regret the absence and departure of good bloggers. I'll tell you something: we can't attract them and we can't keep them. Because Steem has become exactly what we see every day. I'll tell you something else: a revolution is not enough to reverse this. We need a fresh start – where each of us starts from exactly Zero. Those who go through with this have a genuine interest in the cause of this platform. Then Steem, as an institution and as a cryptocurrency, will have value again.