I wanted to tell you that I am impressed that you took the time to read my reply to you (in both places) and to respond not only directly but also in a post. Thank you for that.

You are right that it was a poor use of words on my part to say that you won't care. To say that you don't care would apply towards us small users in general from those at the top (as you mentioned was the case by Sneak), but you are right that I should not have assumed that it applied to you. I apologize for making that incorrect assumption about you specifically when I had no basis for it.

Regarding your point about Steemit being just a test platform for STEEM to use in a bigger way later, I think this is something that is news to many. I have heard from people that they "think" this is the case, but I have never had someone be so direct in saying it was so. I respect you for doing so. While you make me wonder what is the purpose of me being here everyday for 6 months and helping to make this a community place, I do definitely respect that you are telling me "the way it is".

As far as expectations of the platform, yes I would agree that many (including me) have wrong expectations. While I am not part of the "get rich" crowd, I did expect that the people at the top try to help make Steemit a place to be for the future. I did expect that the connections, the friendships, the reputation, etc would one day be something that made a difference. But from what I can glean from your answer is it is all meaningless. All these groups and people will be gone from Steemit one day and there will be totally new platforms for everyone to branch out to join and hopefully one day make new sets of friends, connections, and build their own reputations.

No wonder people think that @fulltimegeek is wasting his time fighting haejin, he's fighting for something that isn't relevant to the future. Who cares what your Steemit Reputation rating is if Steemit is only a short term step and meant to be cannibalized by future competitors as the Steem blockchain develops? @fulltimegeek should just make lots of money and be like everyone else as this is all just a test.

I recognize that you are not the one that has devised this plan, but it makes a lot of sense now that I see the actions of Steemit and the top witnesses. I frankly don't know what to say about the plan. Yes it makes sense to not care about your first one or two million users; if the only thing you view those people as lab-rats performing a test. It would've been nice of them to ask us to be those lab-rats. I don't know if I would've spent every day of the last 6 months trying to be a part of a community, if I would've known this place didn't matter for anything more than a reference implementation.

It's a reference implementation of what's possible on the STEEM blockchain. It's not the primary forcus of Steemit, inc.

My issues are no longer with you or with any of the people that run Steemit (witnesses, whales, or employees). You have told me that I don't matter in their eyes, and that this is simply an experiment that is meant to make STEEM great in the future so they can have a more valuable underlying currency and blockchain so they can really grow their wealth even further. I get the way that this helps them, and if I was a top 20 witness or a large holder of STEEM maybe my thinking would be different.

But I'm not. My friends are not.

We are just people trying to build a community for a place that doesn't even really care if it exists. We didn't sign up to be lab-rats in an experiment and frankly I didn't even know that's what we were.

Now I do.

Thank you very much for the honesty @lukestokes. I appreciate very much that you took the time and energy to tell me the truth. Like you with Sneak, I am not happy at all about it. But I will tell you that I respect that you are the first one to tell me directly this is the case.

I have recently referenced witnesses that I strongly support and would like their opinion on this. I know that this is political and they might not want to agree or disagree in public. But since I believe they are fighting to make this community stronger, I would like to ask them why?

If you can respond, could you? (@steemcommunity -@abh12345 @paulag) @danielsaori @yabapmatt @steemgigs (@surpassinggoogle) @jackmiller @curie @qurator (@scrooger)