Bidbots, the Good, the Bad, and You: PH Post
Note: @adamada hijacked this account again. There's no artsy flare for this post. It's a wall of text meant to bore you to death.
I have procrastinated posting this since my early days on the platform. Back when my @adamada account was just a week old learning to crawl on the platform. Bidbots have been endorsed as a thing that could help you make more profit from the platform. Never really the type that gives into the hype but I was curious fellow.
It didn’t take long for me to realize where my stand is on the use of bidbots after pondering on the subject.
Spoiler: Bidbots are not for the common good and the people that milks money from them the most are their owners/delegators. No artistic photos below, just a wall of text filled with real talk.
That already sums up the post so you can just skip over the rest of the content.
The use of bidbots is easy to understand. Send it some SBD or Steem then hope you get an upvote worth more than what you paid it. There are risks attached like scam bidbots or getting an upvote less than what you paid for due to competition during bidding.
(Pwede ko naman e type to ng tagalog pero natatamad ako. Magpadala ka ng SBD o Steem sa bidbot tapos malaki balik sayo, parang 5-6 pero baliktad.)
But if you’re lucky, you could earn about 10-20% ROI from the effort. You just need to time your bids when everyone else becomes complacent during the round and hope for the best that your portion of the VP earns you higher returns. No guarantees but like any optimistic gambler, it’s not a bad idea to hope for the best especially when there are a lot of competitors.
(Mahihintay ka ng tamang tyempo na makuha ang pinakamataas na porsyento ng boto. Kelangan mo mag tyaga ng ilang oras baka ma unahan. Pero kadalasan may nakaka tsupit pa sayo so try ulit sa next round. Pag mataas yung bid mo may loko na tataasan ka ng bid sa huling segundo.)
Just need to spend some time watching the clock, surveying how much SBD or Steem to send, and how many strangers you have to compete with during the round to maximize your profit. Really not worth the time unless you got nothing else to do. There’s too much effort just for an uncertain ROI and volatile SBD/Steem price.
(Pag na copy paste ko ang tagalog version sa itaas preho lang ang meaning nito.)
By the time you do get that sweet upvote, the price of SBD or Steem fluctuated to a sinking direction. There is a greater chance you end up breaking even or at a small percentage loss but who cares? As long as those digits display a figure higher than what you paid for, it’s all good right?
(Sino niloloko mo? Kumita kaba talaga o nag sugal na di kanaman sure kung may ROI effort mo at worth it pa. Ang mundo ng crypto taas baba ang halaga kahit preho lang ang numero. Yung piso nga dati makakabili kana ng dalawang kendi e ngayun kahit papuri lang na peke ang mahal na kunin)
Wake up and realize that 25% of the tentative post payout will just go to curators/bidbot that voted your post. You will be left with 50% Steem power and 50% SBD liquid rewards. The liquid SBD will be easy to move out of the platform before prices become unfavorable but what about the Steem power you get? You need to power it down to steem for it to become a profit.
(Hindi ito pag short term at parang nilagay mo lang sa savings ng wallet mo yung kinita mo pero mas matagal kunin. Yung sa savings ng wallet mo sa steemit, tatlong araw mo makukuha, pero yung pag power down ng steem e umaabot ng ilang buwan tapos di kapa sigurado kung ang presyo pag pwede na kunin same sa ngayun gets?)
Note how much time is spent before fully getting all your steem from that 100% power down. While you are powering down, steem could gain more value or lose more value. Most of the time, the price of Steem hasn’t shown much promise of hitting another all time high anytime soon. You just earned yourself an opportunity cost.
(Maraming missed chanced ang pwede mo makuha tuwing mag iinvest ka. Isipin mo nalang ang magandang chance ngayun kinuha mo pero after mo ma lock in yung pera doon bigla nalang nakwento sayo ng kapitbahay mo na may mas magandang offer pero di mo na makukuha dahil may commitment kana. Yan yung opportunity cost. Pwede mo sanang kunin pero di mo nagawa dahil may desisyon kang ginawang iba. Nangyayari yan lagi sa buhay. Wag muna mag buhay sosyal para lang may budget sa skwela.)
But that bidbot just made my post more visible? Isn’t that going to help me get more followers or help people find my content?
(Malaking kalokohan kung inisip mo maraming magkakapakialam pag nasa trending yung post mo. Siguro yung auto follow na bot mag fofollow sayo at onting comment dito pero di naman yan magiging tunay na fans mo. Pili lang ang tunay na may paki sa post mo at yun yung mga taong dapat mong alagan.)
Right… exactly how do you think manual curation communities are doing versus bidbot business in the platform? Manual curation communities have guidelines for upvoting post that most do not qualify while anyone with a small amount of crypto on their wallet can get an upvote from a bidbot. It serves the same purpose of promoting yourself in the platform but the latter is just most convenient compared to brainstorming quality content to get noticed.
(Wala ka skills para gumawa ng post na kaaya-aya? No prob, go for bidbots, get superficial appreciation, kumita, at lokohin ang sarili na well appreciated ka ng systema.)
Other than you possibly ending up in a small percentage loss from the bidbot, risk of getting scammed from trying out not yet established bidbot names, and gaining more opportunity costs because you had to wait for powering down to finish to reap your earnings while exposed to volatility, there’s only profit left to look forward to.
(Totoo naman, maraming risks lang ikaw na kinukuha mag bidbot dahil competitive naman yung pag bid pero worth naman kung kaya mo naman sabayan yung laban. Yun nga lang, kahit successful ka, di naman ibig sabihin yun payout worth will be worth it pag SBD o Steem bumaba. Binibili mo lang yung uncertainty)
Bidbots are only good for promoting yourself reasons and not really an investment to get your sent money to earn a small percentage from the upvote. Most of the time it’s just breakeven. It’s just for more visibility. It would be effective if there were a lot of people manually curating posts. This platform doesn’t have a lot of rational patrons that are into upvoting quality content. This platform is dominated by people that want to earn something carrying their own biases on which shitpost to upvote. Not all the time but it frequently happens.
(Pera pera lang. Di lahat ng tao ganyan, may mga taong lubos talaga na tumutulong sa kapwa at yun yung maganda sa platform na to dahil nakakita ako ng ganyan minsan, pero kahipokritohan lang sabihin na hindi iniisip yun habang nag popost. Saludo nga ako sa taong kayang mag deny ng post payout for a long time at di one time thing. Bihira lang ako makakita ng santo sa platform na nagdedeny ng payout sa post, get’s nyo?)
Uh huh… so where exactly is all the negativity about bidbots coming from?
(Malamang sa bato ni Darna. Wala akong tiwala sa kanya. Isipin mo nalang na lumulunok ng bato, ilang oras lumalaban tapos kaya pa ipalabas pag nagsabi Narda kahit na parang nasa large intestine nya na yung bato siguro.)
I’m glad you reached this part because I’m assuming manual curators or engaged readers are already gone. There’s a gaping hole in Uranus that needs to get plugged. Watermelons are melons with identity crisis induced by water. Squid balls aren’t really made from squid testicles.
(Hindi ako sure pano e translate yung kalokohan dyan pero may sense naman, hanapin niyo lang.)
No matter what the scenario. Whether the price of SBD or Steem is high or low, bidbot owners earn because it’s just passive income to them. Patrons of their bot can send their SBD or Steem as much as they want regardless of the coins value and the bot owners just keep earning from act passively. They can just leave the bot to do it’s thing and comeback with a pot of gold when they check the bot’s wallet. Same concept applies for bot delegators only the rewards are scheduled to be frequently split.
(Di na need mag translate nyan.)
Who ends up taking the risk of losing potential ROI? The ones paying for the upvotes. There’s really no guarantee that your effort in timing your bid and your money will reap substantial ROI from the upvote. You got other people competing with you for the bid. On the other hand it’s a sure earning for the bot owner. It’s a business. Bidbots get a portion of the 25% of your post’s payout remember?
(Kala mo kumita ka pero parang joke lang lahat at na scam ka. Tandaan niyo na walang forever. Kahit yung ‘Forever More” na palabas sa TV natapos na.)
What’s more terrible is that bidbots gain SP from curating your posts and it just boosts their upvoting value making them more sought after. This translates to the bidbot’s value being raised and so does the amount that goes into the owner’s wallet. As the bidbot grows, it takes away more SP or reward from the joint reward pool and deprives other users that might have deserved more rewards for their posting efforts. The bidbot can just self upvote on the sidelines and get more tugging power against other users from the reward pool.
(Parang pinapakain niyo lang ang halimaw na papatay ng unti unti sa platform.)
Remember that bidbots don’t really look at the post’s value. As long as the bidder is not on the bot’s blacklist, it will upvote a shitpost and boost that shitpost’s visibility over a quality post that didn’t have the advantage. Furthermore, plagiarized posts can be upvoted because no adequate screening is done to verify legit authors of the content.
(Seryosong problema to para sa mga taong nag fake creators at shitposters. Lahat pwede basta hindi naka blacklist at kahit may counter measures may nakakalusot at late na madetect)
If more favored manual curation for quality posts, then less plagiarized posts would get rewarded since more screening measures are taken to screen plagiarists in the platform. However, not everyone can be sympathetic to the cause of manual curation communities out to support quality content creators of the platform, for the simple reason that there’s little money to be gained in doing so. I mean, not everyone can make quality content frequently and curation communities may have stringent guidelines about posts to upvote, might as well choose an option that has the least hurdle, thank you bidbots.
Bidbots may boost an author’s visibility and can help generate more ROI if timed right. However, these bots have a tendency to attract cons like what were previously mentioned. We need to support quality content creators not reliant on bidbots because these are the people that build more value to the platform.
But then again I look at this platform as a social experiment. If the pulse of most users is directed for self profiting, it’s unlikely that we are going to see changes in the status quo anytime soon. I see bidbots as agents that harm the ecosystem as they gain power. If you’re not using bidbots, you have less chance of getting your content as far as it possibly can. Shouldn’t content creators step up their game in creating content and be consistent about it in response?
The purpose of bidbots is to get a user’s post more visible but it doesn’t necessarily mean that post has value for the platform. We’ll be seeing more bidbots popping up as manual curation goes down because that’s the seemingly easy way to generate attention from the public fast without the old school slow and steady public relation works.