RE: Using Bid Bots, Self Upvoting, The old "'Circle Jerk" and now Posting on multiple platforms...
I used to self upvote, and my votes aren't even worth two cents... I've since stopped, yet still find that with following my favorite curation trails, sometimes I have voted for myself anyway.
To me, this one is dependent on how much you post... Kind of.
If you post 5 times a day, and you self upvote, I would call you selfish, but if you post no more than once a day, and you self upvote, I would call you practical. Here's my logic.
My upvote is already very small because I'm a minnow. Your vote value grows one way, and one way only, Steem Power, (of course you know this, but some reading may not). (Not to be confused with VP, but you already have an integral understanding of SP and VP). So you gain Steem Power from curation rewards, and post rewards.. Unless you buy Steem Power, this is the only way possible to increase stake, that being said, by maximizing the potential for your own growth, you are maximizing the potential ability to give others higher value votes.
This is my frame of thought at all times in regards to the rewards system. The question I ask myself is "What can I do to become as big as possible, so that I may help my friends more?" I've concluded that self upvote is part of the strategy for me, and accounts for 1-5% of my upvotes at any given time. As long as it doesn't exceed (at any given time) 5 % I'm happy.
As far as the bid bots are concerned, I used to use them, and decided to do so, no longer. It's actually quite a complex topic, and I go into it a little bit in one of my recent posts, so I won't touch on that much right now because my comment is gonna end up looking like a post lol.
At the end of the day, I don't judge others. Your freedom to do what ever you want here is (to me) what it's all about, and the fact that we have such a diverse range of opinions on the platform, I think, is a good thing.
Nice post bro, Thanks for covering an important topic :)
I agree with you, I think the bid bots can be put to good use at times. When we bought steem, to transfer it to steem power using them was great. instead of a 1:1 gain you got 1:1.1... now that the market is more volatile it would be a bit more of a gamble though.
Another example would be the recent steem monster post, they announced it would be getting heavily botted, which allowed for others to get curation, and the profits are going towards building a game that is benefiting the steem community... In my opinion that is another good use of the bots!
Thanks for your detailed response, good to hear from you again, seems we both took a break and came back around the same time... lol
@steemmonsters :
Strange that was the first thing that came to my mind when seeing this post. I completely agree, and I have to respect the fact that they openly state that they will bot to boost visibility, furthermore the project adds value to Steem, and requires work/time, so I see nothing wrong with it, but this is only my opinion. I'm sure some would disagree and call it a mockery slap in the face to proclaim use..
Likewise my friend! It's nice to talk to you again. I've been around, just not very active. Sometimes I need a break from the internet. See you in the tourney later!!