From @shookriya

This debate is really interesting, thank you all so much for your thoughtful and passionate discussion esp. @jpederson96, @indigoocean, @kusari (by the way all else aside this was a really creative post)
I am a complete noob here and though I have spent many many hours on this platform these past few days (probably close to 10 just researching the platform and how it works and how to optimize my experience here) I have never heard of vote sellers or queue list bots. I'm sure many of us noobs are in the same boat.
I can see how spending months creating content that you believe to have a lot of value and having it go completely unnoticed due to the mechanics of the machine and lack of a following could be extremely frustrating.
Of course we've all got dues to pay but when a system offers tools to facilitate that process then I see no reason why utilizing those tools should be frowned upon. However I'd love to hear about better options if they exist in order to best make use of this platform.
Spreading these tools is important because there is a bit of a barrier to entry on this platform (due to the learning curve for many users) and ultimately the success of the platform itself depends on the success of its users. Are there some good resources you can recommend to enlighten us beginners on some of these tools you've mentioned and any more you might have in mind?
Despite the "dustiness" of my account and emptiness of my blog I'm super excited about this platform and want to see it, and the awesome community here, succeed.
Thanks again.

Absolutely! I love being able to debate things with fellow #Alliance members without it leaving the debating comments. That's the amazing thing about the family. We have a diverse pool of opinnions and perspectives yet we don't take things personally. Instead, we argue until we get bored and change subject to something funny.

Now, time to wreck this bot!

But Wait!

Jam to Some Tunes While Reading

See?

This is exactly what I am talking about. As a noob, you aren't fully aware what the open market is offering you and because there are only a handful of queue listers and only two seller markets, the voices of bid bots is inherently louder and thus what I am accusing of "scamming" with pure marketting force. So, if you would so kindly allow me to explain.

1. Background
2. Shift in Dynamics
3. Why Bid Bots are harming the better solution

1. Background

Wave 1

When it first comes to I pay, you vote, the very first to sell votes explicitly are @randowhale and @whaleshares. Whaleshares is done by some of the creators of bitshares (made by the co-creator of steemit). You buy or earn whaleshares, hairshares, or beyondbits on the Bitshares Decentralized Exchange (Dex). If you send 1 SBD to rando, you will get a random % vote. I've gotten anywhere from $1.80 to $4.05.

Wave 2

After these OGs, @minnowbooster and BuildTeam were founded. MinnowBooster has a feature where you provide them posting authority so that they can vote and provide you 40% of the profits. They sell votes at 270% ROI. So you get a 2.7 SBD vote for every $1 SBD you send. There are easy limitations for it that you can customize. @BuildaWhale was created around wave 2. This was the first bid bot, but it has a massive value so in the early days you got incredible returns. This was especially true when it didn't get the reach it now has particularly with steembottracker. Qeue list bots were created around this time as well. This was where you would send the post link and wait until the bot refills VP and then vote 10 posts from the list. These have the highest ROI with @lays giving 270%, Tpot gave 300% for a while, and @bumper which was 300% up until recently. I am a part of both of these teams (Bumper and TPot)

Invasion 3

Now we have over 70 bid bots. SteemBotBtracker made it easy to fill and overfill the bids. This often led to harshly negative ROIs. This is essentially you paying them x fee for bidding and y cost for the vote. To understand, the important ROI is the liquid SBD you get from payout. Because of the 50/50 split, you need 200% ROI (2x the cost value) in order to break even **if voted first on post when it first posts). Otherwise, you get 75% and give 25%. This means anything below 250% is already a loss. You can consider the SP as adequate for anything above 200% ROI, but again this isn't a liquid currency.

2. Shift in Dynamic

As I said, it is truly an invasion. They kept blowing up. Left and right. With the help of steembottracker loading up the bids and overfilling, the bots became way to profitable to run. This meant everyone was creating one. This had several unfortunate side effects. Firstly, this shifted the wealth upwards towards a few whales running the bots and the average money left in minnow hands to be much less. Afterall, if you get negative ROI or still earning less liquid than paid, you aren't growing your wallet and only slowly growing your SP at a much smaller rate... then you turn around and give up your SP to help these bots!

The Circular Inflation of Delegation Markets

So when a bid bot gets SP, where do they turn to? MinnowBooster SP Delegation Market. Prior to bid bots, it was easy to lease SP for personal usage. After, it became harder. Due to the incredible profits, bid bots were willing to pay more than average leasers would be willing to shovel. This, accompanied by the explosion and invasion of bid bots on the market, meant the delegation market became ruined... the only people delegating were dolphins. As a minnow, if you managed to hussle 100 SP to delegate, you would have decent ROI on being able to delegate SP, but where are you spending that SBD? To the very same bots! Your money is being circularly drafted from your pocket to whale pockets, fee taken, then given back to you so that you don't even notice the slow drain to your wallet.

Need A New Song?

3. Why Bid Bots are harming the better solution

So, as I mentioned, bid bots ruined the delegation market by sheerforce of number, but they also beat the overall ecosystem because there are way more bid bots than there are queue list bots, and only two vote seller markets, @minnowbooster and @smartmarket. This means reach of word to mouth is dominated by bid bots. So when a minnow like you, @shookriya, then you are given only one perspective:

1. You are gaining visibility thus higher organic votes
2. You are giving to a good cause (some bid bots)
3. ROI may be great if you time it right

This is utter horse shit. These are non exclusive, meaning that the better solution, queue lists and vote sellers hold the exact same benefits. 🔥🔥🔥 You cannot argue that your thing is fair if the customer is losing money. Moreover, trying to apply argumentation for vote selling thereby is equally valid for both bid bots and vote sellers / queue lists. Meaning you have A, something that takes more money than gives or B, something that breaks even or profits. Which is more scammy?

But Wait!

The Best is Yet to Come

Remember, you have to time it! This is absurd. They have turned something that you pay into a game! You better keep an eye on steembottracker! You might miss the jackpot! This is the equivallency of those toss a quarter into a sliding tray game at Chuckee Cheese. They are training you to gamble your SBD for payouts??? As a former gambling addict, I can assure you that it is fucked up to turn minnows into little addicts while you grab heaps of profit after profit from them.

Meanwhile, services that try to make a fair trade are shoved out by word and money. As STEEM dwindles lower, it is more expensive to give upvotes. This mixes poorly with a delegation market that is over inflated with bid bots battling to get SP. This leaves many to going out of business. These are business tactics you would expect of a 1920s railroad industry not a 21st century blogging platform.

You want to make a political stance against GrumpCat? Then don't become a bid bot. Don't give him valid reasons to be correct. Promote vote selling so that minnows can make money off their VP not their SP.
You want to make a whale while still be able to fund that whale? Become a queue list. Don't make people gamble. Make it clear what ROI they get and allow them to pay for a service not an addiction.

Anywho, thanks very much for allowing me to rant on that much, feel free to comment your agreement or disagreement below and have a great weekend!

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