To Bot or Not To Bot
There's a real question as to whether bots are a good or a bad thing, and the community at large has been trying to answer it for some time now.
At the moment I'm leaning pretty heavily towards a bad thing, but I'm going to try to be as even handed as possible in appraising both sides as I now understand them.
When I first arrived on the Steemit scene I was under the impression that your post value over time was a real reflection of the quality of your posts. That's true to some degree certainly, but it's also true that it's a reflection of your understanding of the platform and your ability/willingness to take advantage of it to the maximum extent.
I've been posting and voting for over a year now, and I'm pretty proud to say that I've never used a bid bot or paid for an upvote.
But I'm on the verge of giving it a shot.
@aggroed recently made two fairly persuasive posts on bid bots here and here that I found somewhat persuasive in favor of bid bots.
However, there are some philosophical problems that I don't feel can be easily resolved.
The great thing about Steemit is that it's decentralized. The thing that worries me about bid bots and upvoting communities is that they are centralizing the platform.
The time may be coming soon where it won't be possible to succeed on this site without bid bots. Meanwhile, the owners of these bots grow ever fatter, increasing their stake in the platform and making it so that there's an even greater dependency on them.
How is this any different than the fiat system run by banks? That may seem like an extreme comparison now, but remember that banks started off pretty benign, too.
But it's sort of a moot point because, as @aggroed pointed out, people who don't use them are much more likely to fall behind on power in the platform, giving way to people who certainly don't have the community's best interests in mind.
So, sometime soon, I'll bet taking my first do in the bid bot pool and hoping for the best.
Tuesday, November 28th, 2017
Source: 1
Your question is painfully real for many of us. Like you I have shunned bots because of a sense that innate quality (good) should prevail. Sadly we've never seen this happen throughout history on any scale.
It seems the best we can hope for is that those kind ones currently in power (benign whales, bots or not) will fight our battle against the greedy, self-serving whales (often a bot consortium!)
Maybe the one thing we smaller fry could do is give (proxy) our witness vote for those who are the benign whales. I suggest that someone with more experience than me compile a list of altruistic witnesses. You mention @aggroed and he's voting @minnowsupport. Another great post is by @lukestokes here. My conundrum is that I'm too new to know all the players so can't cast an informed vote. I'm betting I'm in the majority. Help!
I feel your pain, man! Becoming fully aware in the platform enough to actually cast my vote in an intelligent manner is something that happened only recently.
The good news is that it happens pretty organically as you read articles and participate in discussions. You'll get a better and better sense of who is legit and who isn't.
For my own part, @jesta (really awesome developer behind Steem Stats and ChainBB) and @roelandp (guy who organizes Steemfest) are among my favorites at the moment, but I get the sense that in six months I'll have an even better sense of who to vote for.
Thanks for the encouragement and info on the others.
I didn't see it as a way of centralisation but you have put that into perspective for me.
I personally think that in the beginning before bots were all the rage, they were created with good intentions.
I'm unsure if what has happened is just natural progression because of the human element.
It's makes me think of TMZ all over again.
How do we break from a system when it's all that we know, even though on an innate level we know that something is not right.
It's a good question, one we'll have to answer as a community.
Another great thought provocking post @jenkinrocket. I am arriving at similar conclusions myself. It is very worrying for the platform that content creators need to resort to bots to get a return on their time investment. I also hoped i could use this platform in a way that my content would speak for itself without self voting and bots to give me a return but this is seeming a very difficult challenge as delegation of SP and bots leave me in the dust.. Your posts deserve much more exposure than they are currently getting. Resteemed. Hope to see you on the trending page very soon.