Here's an underused tag if ever there was one! On this site, you're either a creator, a curator, both... Or a nobody.

Creating is difficult. You have to be original and then it might all fall on deaf ears. So is there a point? For most, the answer has to be a resounding 'no' but does that stop them? Of course, it doesn't. The little fish all dream of being big fish and feel churning out work is the way to become one. Some naughty ones plagiarise material. Others take random pictures of crap and call it art. There are a million-and-one ways to skin a cat, aren't there? It's just most get real messy real quick.

Hmmm....

So, man then goes and invents the BID BOT.

The creator sees this and thinks:

I think I'll have some of that. I could try to convince other people they should be upvoting my material so I'll buy myself a few votes to get the ball rolling. If I make enough curators enough dough, some day I might be able to stop with the bid bots essentially tricking the curators into curating my produce even though I've removed the financial incentive.

And here we get a war of attrition!

It's dog eat dog, big fishy eat little fishy in this world

The curator knows exactly what the creator's game is and thinks:

Most people are using the bidbots to exaggerate the value of their work. So that other people will take an interest and start giving upvotes that the material hardly deserves. If we're being honest. A creator could give these incentives to a point and then - somewhat slyly - stop giving them. If they're lucky (or if there are enough curators dumb enough) they'll get to keep having their material upvoted sufficiently to keep them happy. Making them considerably more profit than they would have otherwise. But we curators are smart cookies.

We'll just move on.

But it's not a war of attrition at all. It's an EASY WIN for the curator.

The curator then also thinks:

What I could do - as my account begins to bulge - is make sure my upvotes never change in value (even though the maximum does continue to grow as the account grows, obviously). For example, I could have a 10 cent upvote. Alternatively, if I have a max upvote of a dollar, I could set my voting to 10% to enable me to keep my 10 cent upvote. AND I'LL GET TEN TIMES MORE VOTES THIS WAY!!!

If a creator pulls a fast one and stops buying votes, I'll only lose 10 cents and then stop curating their work. There are so many people buying upvotes, I'll always be able to find fresh meat - so to speak.

PLEASE UPVOTE (big / little) IF YOU FOUND THIS TO BE USEFUL AND IS GENUINELY WORTHY OF AN UPVOTE.

Alternatively, post something of little value and buy yourself some upvotes instead.

I still win in the end. 😉

Image - copyright Alisha Brown, taken from anglersatlas.com licensed for reuse

The link to part 2 - Yes, there's more to this!