RE: Why I Left Sndbox ++ You Are In Danger From Vote Buying on Steem
I think that the automation that is taking place on Steemit (vote selling and buying) is ruining everything. A few days ago, I transferred 5 SBD to one of the upvote bots to see how much I would make. I got a ~10 SBD upvote in return, so I can't say that the ROI is that huge.
So what makes people spend money on upvotes? I guess most will say that buying votes can get you more exposure. However, I have the feeling that exposure to the trending page brings nothing else but spam comments. I never make it to the trending page, and my posts are full of good and well-thought comments. Open a trending post, and you'll see that it's full of shitty comments.
I really hope the development team changes something with the next hard fork because the current situation is unsustainable.
Anyways, thanks for sharing this, dude! I hope you pay back your debts as soon as possible.
If your figures are correct, I'd say you did quite well on the bot vote purchase. You doubled your money.
Well, the upvote was double the amount I paid for it, but then you have to consider that some of the rewards went back to the curator (the bot). And what's left was split between Steem Power (which is not liquid) and SBD, so I think I got paid a bit less SBD at the end. Anyways, you are right - it's still positive ROI.
You make good points Dan - the kind of money you can make from buying/selling votes at the small scale isn't very exciting to the kind of person who regularly earns hundreds of dollars or more per paycheck.
On the other hand I have to agree with @wizardave that it's enough an ROI to be a HUGE incentive for many people. I mean it must be a strong incentive given how much vote buying and selling occurs.
Thanks for your thoughts guys!