Confessions of a Self-Voting Steemian
There, I said it - I am a self-voter. This behavior has been going on since I joined Steemit, and I don't see it changing anytime soon. How can I justify this you ask? Well, I like my content, and it is a free market.
Did any of us join Steemit because we wanted to create another Animal Farm? We are fed up with our old Facebook or Google master and want a freer society to live and work in. We leave the old paradigm and begin creating a new one, only to find in the end that we don't know how to run our own platform any better.
I don't see the regulation of our voting as a healthy choice. We are working to solve a new problem with solutions from an old world.
In simple terms, the argument seems to be that those who are self-voting are draining the reward pool for themselves and not sharing the daily rewards. *I say let them do so.* We have learned time and again in our society that such behavior is not rewarded by people participating in free enterprise.
What do you do when you talk with someone that only enjoys speaking highly of themselves? You want out of that conversation as quickly as possible. We are wired to want to hear more about ourselves. Self-voting satisfies that partially but what we truly want to hear is if other people approve of what we create.
The biggest rewards are never reserved for those that toot their own horn. The people creating the greatest value will always be rewarded with the largest reward. If you start telling people what they can and cannot do with their money - Steem Power in our case - you are cutting off one head of Hydra and allowing two more to grow in its place.
Thinking of the Little Guy
Starting out on Steemit is hard. You see posts worth hundreds of dollars and you are struggling to make $1-$2. The reality sets in for you that buying Steem is a good idea. This puts upward pressure on the price of Steem and benefits all of us.
What if you can't purchase the Steem you want? Then it is time to build a following by upvoting and commenting on other posts. Wait, you self-upvoted your own posts and now have a low voting power. You decide in the future to vote smaller amounts on your own posts and support the people that you find to be creating quality content.
This scenario is what it takes to build a business. You market your products and earn on the value you created. The more people buying your product the more revenue you create. That customer base is built on Steemit by commenting and upvoting on posts other than your own. You can make some money by only self-upvoting, in fact the curation rewards are better when you do so. However, in the big picture did you give up a feast shared with friends for a frozen pizza you cooked yourself?
me for more great content.
I'm here almost a year. I'd bought most of my steem for hard earned money. Everybody preaching from day one how important is to have a lot of steem power to have influence on the platform. I'm not native English speaker and my only way to participate is to vote and comment. I see everyday for whole year how people riding my voting bot and cashing out all rewards and buying laptops, plane tickets, smartphones, even sport cars, and post about that and on top of that get rewarded. It's their decision,I don't care. But when I stopped voting bot and start self voting my comments all hell break loose. They even set a bot who start down voting mine and probably also other steem users. They will not attract investors this way.
I agree that prevent self voting is basically like saying sell all your steem power. The people downvoting of self voting are trying to prevent abuse....but they are going about it the wrong way in my opinion.
That is sad to hear. You earned that investment and chose to participate with it on Steemit.
Proud of you for sticking around and still voting. You are an example for new investors.
It's not big deal really. They changing rules all the time. After every HF different group of steemians get on top. I'm not complaining at all. Just some of my thoughts about this issue. It's always ways around if one want. Look at trending page. No comment.
People find a way to win.
I didn't hear you complaining so much as chuckling at the way some folks act. You sound like you have a level way of looking at things.
Thanks. It's never black or white. It's grey; most of the time.
It seems to me there are small groups of people with decent steem powers that just upvote each other.
mafia style setup.
Every early supporter invested his money and it wasn't for charity purpose. They are expecting returns on it and self upvoting is one way to achieve it.
You should read my comment for the post for full context. You will find that I would agree with you.
Sure, but that's the way the whole steemit is setup. Everybody can buy or earn steem power and do whatever he want.
@oldtimer, much as we would like to think otherwise... people often start "behaving badly" when there is money involved. I have seen many of these discussions... and one of the things I always like to point out (not popular!) is that (a) Steemit did not give anyone a JOB, they offered an OPPORTUNITY... so your pay is a "reward" not anyone's obligation to pay and (b) focusing on "short term rewards" is not any kind of investment, it is basically "playing the lottery."
Responsible people know how to handle money and have long term strategy. If I upvote myself now and buy more cheap steem to do better curation latter when I'll have more time it will be better for me and all authors and steem platform. I never play lottery.
I think this is a solid point! I also think it is ones own business what kind of strategy one chooses to use which in the long run is the best for ones own development.
Correct. And it also depend in what situation each individual find himself.
I'm sure steemit.inc have their own strategy for platform to grow and prosper.
But I can see people joining steemit platform and after one week they know everything and they start preaching and teaching users and developers what to do and how to do. I hate that.
People are free to do what they want with their investment in steemit. It's that simple. I don't care for the people that pop in a comment on one of my posts, say "good post" and upvote themselves .50 cents. It's not very neighborly, but I'm not going to downvote them, I will unfollow and ignore them.
The bot issue is a different story. AI downvote bots shouldn't exist. Plain & Simple. Very dangerous thing to have.
yeah there are others downvoting self-upvoted comments now..why not start curating manually again :)
Love the honesty and why the hell not!? If the bot creators can do it, if the groups of people that auto vote circle jerk each other can do it, if VacationRentals can do it, why not real people who actually write legit posts?
Haha, exactly!
I would never have bought steem if I couldn't upvote myself. It's a necessary incentive for investors. I want my content to become more visible, and so upvoting it the best way to achieve just that.
Perfect example right there. Thank you. ✊️
I admire your honesty Mr.Selfvoter, and I have to agree with you on this one cause the pool will get drained anyhow, so might as well take part of the pie. take my upvote and follow.
Haha, thank you for the upvote and follow.
The default setting is to upvote your own posts. If the creators of steemit thought it was a bad idea. I doubt it would be the default setting. When you have made some steempower then it is of course a choice.
Good post @lydon.sipe I've been looking for an honest man.
Now can anyone tell me how to turn my upvote back on?
Precisely. You know that was a discussion early on. Appreciate the kind words @molometer.
Upvote from your computer/laptop?
I found the toggle button under the post. I switched that thing back on. ;)
Haha, perfect. ;)
We don't need SteemitPolice !!!
This was the main sales pitch not so long ago. No censorship.
Haha, there you go!
I love the last line - it reminds me of Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago where he couldn't enjoy a family feast while all the rest of Moscow was dark, silent and hungry. Steemit is a blog site and we all covet readers and followers, but to attain that we have to give something of value in time, rewards or investing in the site. I think you did a good job of exploring these alternatives, lydon
Your literary knowledge bank is fun to hear.
I always enjoy knowing that my writing passed the Geddes reading test.
thanks, lydon :)
Amen to that, Lydon! John always has some great quotation or allusion to share. ;)
He sure does! :)
You do have great content @lydon.sipe and I'm a proud follower of yours! Thanks for this article.
You are a kind lady @tlester. It is a joy to interact with you here. :)
Thank you for posting @lydon.sipe.
Very relevant topic. Well written...well said.
Have you seen @mindhunters video regarding the last HF....you should see it.
He sees the new HF a little differently than others......hate to give away the punch line.....he says look at Steemit as mining. Well.....it shows there are different perspectives....we each come to a subject with different frame of references. Perhaps we should give freedom a chance in this new frontier/ space.
bleujay sees that the thinking of OZ/socialist thinking has encroached on the space where we have opportunity for freedom.
To each his own....until we are in their shoes, we cannot know their thinking.
Live and let live......if we let then we live.
Thank you for the opportunity to think on these things.
All the best to you and @mustardseed. Cheers.
Thank you for letting me know about @mindhunter's video. I enjoy reading or viewing every side of an issue.
You are always so gracious in your writing, thank you. I agree we ought to seek freedom over socialism - we know which one wins.
Blessings to you @bleujay, and I will pass along your greeting to @mustardseed.
I self-vote myself since the beginning as well.
Let's look it the other way. If you don't vote your posts, why would the other people do it? I put a lot of work into my posts and sometimes half of the reward is from my vote alone.
The people that are preaching for "Don't vote yourself, you're draining the reward pool" are the same ones that would flag a high paying post, just because they think it pays too much and it will lower their own reward. Not because the post is bad, but because they will "drain" the pool.
That is a good point @sstefan. Some folks are not happy that others are winning more than they are. It is the sad story about the crabs pulling their escaping friend back into the pot - they are not winning so neither should others.
This is precisely why human government "works" and oppresses us all...
😄😇😄
Preach.....