I hang out in steemit.chat's general room a lot. It's a guilty pleasure, that helps me make a lot of social connections, that help grow my account.
Unfortunately, though, we get pretty much every newb with a problem in there.
Lately, that means a ton of new users that have run out of bandwidth.
It sucks.
The bandwidth issue, not just that they come in with every problem. That sucks too. Also the fact that many don't try to research their problem before coming in to ask.
Search engines are your friends. Unless they keep massive troves of data on you, and then sell it to other massive multinational corporations.
Even if they did power up like $50 though, that's less than 10 Steem. It wouldn't be anywhere near enough to fix their bandwidth issues. Even $250 wouldn't let them fully escape the bandwidth monster. It would help extremely mitigate the issue though, for now.
So here we are, suffering from yet another pay to win mechanic. Yet another thing that makes it especially hard for new users.
What's gonna happen when there are even more users? We're not even close to a large social network yet.
What's gonna happen if they fully peg SBD to the dollar, and Steem rises higher and higher, and it gets harder and harder to power up? New users won't be able to do anything without someone choosing to delegate to them, or spending as much as you might in order to buy a new computer.
How are users from countries with lower income averages going to start here? What about when they're faced with the dilemma of cashing out more than they earn in a month, or powering it up, to be able to post more?
And then some large user posts an utterly fucking useless reply to me, and I think, "This is why we're having bandwidth issues."
Of course, it's not. Well, it's part of it. It's all of the people doing useless crap. I personally feel perhaps it should be a bit more evenly distributed.
Just because a user doesn't have a lot of SP doesn't mean they aren't worthwhile, and just because a user has a lot of SP, doesn't mean every comment they make is worth making.
We are in a drought right now. We have a ton of new users, and we're having a bandwidth shortage. We should all be conserving bandwidth together.
*Photo By: Courtesy Photo ([source](http://www.jbsa.mil/News/Photos/igphoto/2001643915/))*Stop making the commoners conserve water when you're watering your mansion grounds with thousands of gallons per day.
Stop posting useless shit.
Tell people to conserve bandwidth.
Don't reply to everything, unless you have something worthwhile to say.
The minnows are suffering, and we need to work together, so new users have a chance to earn enough to power up, and be contributing members of this ecosystem.
At least until they adjust how they conserve bandwidth, so it effects spammers more, and good new users a little less.
