Bid Bots: The Dangers of a Single Story

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The above quote is credited to Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie, one of the most celebrated African writers in contemporary times. She made those passionate statements while reacting to the prejudicial views which most Europeans hold about Africa. Chimmanda brilliantly argued, as you would later see in the video below, that the biases against Africa were single stories, stories which are misleading and not completely correct.

Like the single stories told about Africa and her people, most of the stories told about bid bots on Steemit are single stories. It is not that these stories are not true but they do not reflect the whole truth. They are twisted truths.

The popular narrative about bid bots is that they drain the Steemit reward pool by receiving bids from authors who wants their works to be noticed. Bid bots have also been accused of killing creativity because they only upvote sponsored posts regardless of whether such posts are quality or not.

While I do not argue that all of the allegations against bid bots are untrue, I hold the view that bid bots are functional to the growth and progress of the Steemit community. Permit me to now tell you the other side of the single story:

Bid Bots as the Most Effective Tool of Promotion on Steemit

To this very moment, bid bots are, unarguably, the most effective promotion tool on Steemit. Bid bots give every Steemian an equal opportunity to promote their posts and reach a wider audience. Through bid bots, even those without hefty voting powers are given the opportunity to get their voice across.

Also, the promotion services offered by bid bots have given a voice to prominent accounts who have important messages to share. For instance, such prominent account like @originalworks uses the services of bid bots to reach its large audience for its handsome weekly contests.

Bid bots as an Industry within Steemit.

I once had a fierce debate with @themarkymark, the proprietor of one of the biggest bid bots on Steemit, about the tendency of bid bots to deliver more loses than profits for its users. In the course of the argument, he made me understand what it took to set up a viable bid bot on Steemit. And I would later do my research and find that the bid bot industry is a multimillion dollars industry with hefty investment in Steem required to power it.

Let us briskly look at the investment in SP powering the nine largest bid bots on Steemit. As I write, @appreciator holds 2,772,229 SP; @therising holds 862,785 SP; @rocky1 holds 1,479,802; @upme holds 1,496,479; @postpromoter holds 2,806,386; @promobot holds 877,125; @booster holds 1,003,660; @buildawhale 1,826,917; and @smartsteem holds 2,319,042. This puts the total investment from these nine hefty bots at 15,444,425 SP. At the present price of $2.88 per SP, the total investment in SP powering only the nine bots is $44,479,944.

At a market cap of $740m, the bid bot industry accounts for about 10% of the total investment in STEEM. This is massive. Now imagine what happens if all the SP invested in the bid bots are withdrawn. A crash in the price of STEEM? Oh yes. That is exactly what will happen and the consequences, of course, will be disastrous.

Bid bot creates demand for STEEM

If there is one undeniable fact about bid bot, it is that they generally create demand for STEEM. There are a number of people on Steemit who would not have bought STEEM if not that they need it for promotional services using bid bots. There are also a couple of people who are buying STEEM because they want to delegate it to bid bots in return for some rewards.

The implication is that bid bots are latently expanding the demand for STEEM and this has a potential of shooting up the price of STEEM on the long run.

Conclusion

I do not intend to advance the view that bid bots are without flaws. Rather, I believe that bid bots play some functional role in the workings of the Steemit community. Therefore, the call should not be for the eradication of bid bots. Instead, the call should be against the abuse of bid bots. And, unfortunately, abuse does not have a universal definition. In fact, what you consider an abuse is a sport to another man.

Thanks for your reading time. Your feedbacks will be well received.