It was recently brought to my attention via dialogue brought about by my previous post, here, that some individuals here on the Steemit platform are strongly opposed to bots being used by curators for the purpose of voting.

While I feel some valid points in regard to the value of manually voting are raised, I think the real crux of the matter is being missed. Namely, that Steemit is a free market, for all practical intents and purposes. The idea that bot-voting is somehow "unfair" and that bot votes ultimately harm the platform is misguided at best, and...well...devious, at worst. Why?

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1. Steemit is an open-source, blockchain-based platform. What individual users do with their own private resources therein is really nobody's damn business.

Ned and Dan set this thing free and basically said: "Let's see what happens." Advocating policies which would attempt to dictate what individuals can or cannot do within their personal, private sphere of influence via their own computers, and an open-source code is fine, but I wouldn't expect it to become a popular notion amongst users anytime soon. Let's just pretend that the platform did go in this direction. My prediction: Bye, bye, Steemit. Who in their right mind wants to stay on an "open-source, blockchain-based" social media platform where users can't even use their laptops and private property how they want to? At this point the platform would no longer be "open" at all, really.

2. Sure, bots may suck sometimes, but if they really suck, it is the bot owners and other self-interested curators who will suffer in the end, and most intelligent ones know this.

What do I mean? Well, say a bot owner stops checking on one of his bots and it continues voting on an account that since three weeks ago has been posting pictures of turds. Nothing but shit with two or three emojis to accompany it. While value is subjective, and some users may enjoy seeing these poop snapshots every day, this bot owner is most likely going to be the one paying for the oversight in the end.

Imagine that the whole platform becomes overrun with bots, and almost no one is ever clicking on and reading posts anymore. No interaction. No meaningful dialogue. No real idea exchange or attention market. What happens to Steemit? It sinks.

Your friends will hear you talking about how great the platform is, only to check it out and find pictures of crap, interesting thumbnail pics with no substance to accompany them, ads for hair-growth formula, and pictures of girls with fake titties with names like "Ebony Cox." Steemit would fail, in my view. If Steemit fails, so do the bot owners.

Bot owners for the most part know this. They want to reap a reward as self-interested, individual actors. Voting on garbage will not accomplish this. Most bots that are following me now are doing so because of a relationship that was developed after the bot owner had already come to value and respect my blog and content.

What I am trying to say is this. Free markets are self-correcting. The more you try to meddle, the more things get out of whack. The freer the Steem platform is, the less there will be to worry about in regard to corruption, abuse, etc., in this area.

3. Life's not "fair."

Ned and Dan created this thing, and in regard to the website, they can basically do what they want. In regard to the blockchain, however, things aren't so easy to mess with without the whole endeavor being killed in the process, and everyone, including Ned and Dan, standing to lose a lot. All transactions are burned into that beautiful blockchain forever, as far as we the users are concerned. Still, yes, the website and the interface is subject to changes and policies we as users may not like. If we don't like these things, we are certainly free to leave and to speak out.

That's the beauty of the free market.

So, while I do see bot abuse as a problem, and maybe even a big one sometimes, I in no way think that it should be regulated at this point in time.

Cheers, and thanks for reading.

~KafkA

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Graham Smith is a Voluntaryist activist, creator, and peaceful parent residing in Niigata City, Japan. Graham runs the "Voluntary Japan" online initiative with a presence here on Steem, as well as Facebook and Twitter. Hit me up so I can stop talking about myself in the third person!