I'm one of those stuck in the middle. I don't like the abuse of bots but they can be great for promoting your article / post / contest.
Just to play devils advocate here .. let me lore you to the dark side ....
Some are "human" bots who actually check the content before voting on it. They will adjust their vote based on quality of your content and sometimes won't vote on it at all. Steembasicincom, Its a great initiative but when we boil it down its a bot service. You send in $1 steem for continuous votes instead of just the one.
Something like 40% of this site's SBD and STEEM is going through them Over 30% of curation rewards to go bots, more than 25% of all earned SBD is sent to them, and over 10% of all revenue on the site is pulled in by them, which means that a few individuals are pocketing the majority of a large portion of the reward pool. This is terrible for the internal economy.
You said yourself that new users lose money from doing this. Think about that. What you're saying is that rich whales are accumulating a ton of money from what little income the inexperienced minnows earn. Does nobody see how messed up that is?
Any other site would consider this blatant manipulation of the system and would have banned it, but the people who have the ability to change it are the ones profiting from it.
One counter argument I've seen is that it gives STEEM value because it makes people want to invest to promote their posts. That's a stupid argument because the site could easily offer a sponsored content feature that actually works and surfaces content to the front page with a clear "sponsored" label (instead of the promoted tab), which would be great for the internal economy because it could go back into the reward pool and they could even use it to slow down inflation.
It's facilitating this site being littered with spam and hurting our reputation, slowing the growth of the site.
I want to bang my head against a wall every time someone makes the argument that the "good guys" should use voting bots to combat the bad guys. That is just suggesting that the good guys should be contributing to the exact problem that we're supposedly trying to combat.
Some are "human" bots who actually check the content before voting on it.
If so, they're doing a terrible job at it and it's not working as a site-wide solution because not everyone subscribes to it. It's not in their financial interests to reject people's money.
Steembasicincom, Its a great initiative but when we boil it down its a bot service.
@steembasicincome is technically a voting bot, but it's fundamentally different. The intention is not for one person to profit off of taking other users' money without even caring that people can cheat their way to the top. It's a group fund that you contribute to once, which requires that you sponsor another user, and gives people a very tiny boost (0.025 per share) which ensures that people at least hit the minimum payout on their posts.
The rich / more fortunate taking from the poor / those who have less has been happening since the dawn of time and won't stop.
Agreed about placing " Promoted " content ( which should include any article / post that has paid for votes on it ) in the " Promoted " section. Another way is to have an Organic Posts section that list all post with 0 paid for votes on them.
I never said the human bots that don't upvote bad content didn't accept the bid money. I can't speak for all but I have seen some that will not only not upvote a post but will also keep your funds and possibly flag you as well.
There are a few different types of voting bots, @steembasicincome is just another type. It's purpose and how it functions doesn't change what it is. Don't get me wrong its a great initiative but its still a voting bot.
No matter what system is in place people will find a way to take advantage.
The 40% number: one of the witnesses did a detailed data scrape last month that included all sorts of information including bot income—I’ll see if I can find it.
Yeah, people have been stealing from other since forever. Does that mean we should enable them and give them the money they need to do it? How is that logically any different than shrugging your shoulders and saying that people are going to phish and hack each other and then giving them the tools to do it?
No need in finding the article .. I was just curious as to where the number came from.
I wouldn't call what some bidbot owners are doing stealing. They offer a service, seeing value in your purchase or not is up to the individual using the service. Plus Its like anything else. You need to educate yourself before using / spending your hard earned money on.
A person willingly uses a bot ... no-one willingly gets hacked or joins a phishing scam.
Here's the post I was thinking of. I messed up the number but it's still pretty bad (I suck at remembering numbers--will edit my previous comment so as not to mislead any readers going forward). Over 30% of curation rewards go to bots; over 25% of all SBD earned goes to them, and over 10% of all earnings total go to bots. If you think about that, it's a HUGE amount of money, enough that if any one of those bidbot owners decided to cash out and go retire in Costa Rica tomorrow, they could crash the price of STEEM easily. It also means that all of that money is being taken out of the reward pool the rest of us share.
I think they're stealing from all of the users of the site by hoarding the reward pool. Sure, the people that "feed" them with SBD/STEEM are doing it willingly, but the rest of us are not. We're so quick to come down on haejin for "stealing" from the reward pool (I object to the use of the term "reward pool rape," which people like to do) but what he's doing is causing a minuscule fraction of the damage that the bots are to the internal economy. And they're doing it knowing that it's cheating newbies out of what little money they make.
Those numbers are interesting. Looks like Steemit works the same as funds in the real world work. The ones at the top have the majority.
The only problem I have with hajin upvoting himself constantly is that ( from what I seen ) he only upvotes himself / upvotes others very little. But ultimately that is his choice to make.
The way I look at it is .. he invested and is currently reaping the rewards of his investment. He is free to do so just like anyone who wants to flag him is also free to do so.
As for taking money out of the reward pool, that is what we are all here to do. We didn't invest to just keep our funds on Steemit forever. We want a return on our money / time. And as you said .. the reward pool belongs to everyone so each individual gets to decide what to do with their share of it.
And that takes me back to the bid-bots. I don't view it as stealing. When you pay for a good and receive that good or service it isn't theft. The buyer gets a return on their purchase. Didn't like the return ? Don't use the service again .. just like you would do in other aspects of your life.
I should clarify that I’m not trying to act holier than thou and say my moral compass is better than anyone’s. I’m not a bidbot owner so I’ve never been in their shoes. I acknowledge that it’s easier for me to criticize them when I’m not the one making the decision. On the flip side, it’s not in their interest to do what’s best for the site, so they can’t be relied on to make ethical judgments either.
You weren't coming off that way and I hope I am not either. Nothing wrong with a healthy debate / discussion.
I am on the fence about bid-bots. Remove them completely or join in seems to be where my opinion on them is headed. Admittingly I still have some research to do before I form a complete opinion on the matter.
I agree with the contest part and promoting interest articles.
Isn't it the beauty of the site to be found by people who really are interested in the contents of our publications ?
The bot aspect is like being on a double-edged sword you can get a lot of upvotes (some bring you 50+ upvotes). In a way I would feel more comfy with the idea of having people voting directly for contents and providing comments instead of comments like:
"Congrats you got an upvote of.0.9% courtesy from @name6 (often the author himself)"
Bots are great when used to promote a post from another member we appreciate to read instead oneself.
I know that you offer such service regularly 😉
Sometimes it just needs to be a matter of unselfishness, I think this is also the philosophy of the steemit.com founders.
Giving a " tip " to an author is great use of a bidbot.
The purpose of having the XX amount of upvotes on your post is to make the article look active. For example someone is browsing Steemit and both you and I have an article on cooking.
For this example both our articles contain the same information and is equally as good as the other. One article bid bots were used on and fake upvotes purchased and the other article is organic.
The article that the bidbots were used on would have more cash value added to it and show more upvotes and likely more replies due to the article being in the " hot " or " Trending " Page of its tag. The organic article would have less making the article look less active. And while they both may contain the same info ... the user browsing Steemit is going to naturally click the article of interest with the most activity on it due to the fact it looks like that is what everyone else did, making the promoted article look like the better article.
I'm one of those stuck in the middle. I don't like the abuse of bots but they can be great for promoting your article / post / contest.
Just to play devils advocate here .. let me lore you to the dark side ....
Some are "human" bots who actually check the content before voting on it. They will adjust their vote based on quality of your content and sometimes won't vote on it at all. Steembasicincom, Its a great initiative but when we boil it down its a bot service. You send in $1 steem for continuous votes instead of just the one.
Have I lured you yet ?
Nope, not lured! Here's why:
Something like 40% of this site's SBD and STEEM is going through themOver 30% of curation rewards to go bots, more than 25% of all earned SBD is sent to them, and over 10% of all revenue on the site is pulled in by them, which means that a few individuals are pocketingthe majority ofa large portion of the reward pool. This is terrible for the internal economy.If so, they're doing a terrible job at it and it's not working as a site-wide solution because not everyone subscribes to it. It's not in their financial interests to reject people's money.
@steembasicincome is technically a voting bot, but it's fundamentally different. The intention is not for one person to profit off of taking other users' money without even caring that people can cheat their way to the top. It's a group fund that you contribute to once, which requires that you sponsor another user, and gives people a very tiny boost (0.025 per share) which ensures that people at least hit the minimum payout on their posts.
Excellent reply ...
Some bullet points in response to your reply :
Where did you get the 40 % number from ?
The rich / more fortunate taking from the poor / those who have less has been happening since the dawn of time and won't stop.
Agreed about placing " Promoted " content ( which should include any article / post that has paid for votes on it ) in the " Promoted " section. Another way is to have an Organic Posts section that list all post with 0 paid for votes on them.
I never said the human bots that don't upvote bad content didn't accept the bid money. I can't speak for all but I have seen some that will not only not upvote a post but will also keep your funds and possibly flag you as well.
There are a few different types of voting bots, @steembasicincome is just another type. It's purpose and how it functions doesn't change what it is. Don't get me wrong its a great initiative but its still a voting bot.
No matter what system is in place people will find a way to take advantage.
Thanks for the reply.
The 40% number: one of the witnesses did a detailed data scrape last month that included all sorts of information including bot income—I’ll see if I can find it.
Yeah, people have been stealing from other since forever. Does that mean we should enable them and give them the money they need to do it? How is that logically any different than shrugging your shoulders and saying that people are going to phish and hack each other and then giving them the tools to do it?
No need in finding the article .. I was just curious as to where the number came from.
I wouldn't call what some bidbot owners are doing stealing. They offer a service, seeing value in your purchase or not is up to the individual using the service. Plus Its like anything else. You need to educate yourself before using / spending your hard earned money on.
A person willingly uses a bot ... no-one willingly gets hacked or joins a phishing scam.
Here's the post I was thinking of. I messed up the number but it's still pretty bad (I suck at remembering numbers--will edit my previous comment so as not to mislead any readers going forward). Over 30% of curation rewards go to bots; over 25% of all SBD earned goes to them, and over 10% of all earnings total go to bots. If you think about that, it's a HUGE amount of money, enough that if any one of those bidbot owners decided to cash out and go retire in Costa Rica tomorrow, they could crash the price of STEEM easily. It also means that all of that money is being taken out of the reward pool the rest of us share.
I think they're stealing from all of the users of the site by hoarding the reward pool. Sure, the people that "feed" them with SBD/STEEM are doing it willingly, but the rest of us are not. We're so quick to come down on haejin for "stealing" from the reward pool (I object to the use of the term "reward pool rape," which people like to do) but what he's doing is causing a minuscule fraction of the damage that the bots are to the internal economy. And they're doing it knowing that it's cheating newbies out of what little money they make.
Those numbers are interesting. Looks like Steemit works the same as funds in the real world work. The ones at the top have the majority.
The only problem I have with hajin upvoting himself constantly is that ( from what I seen ) he only upvotes himself / upvotes others very little. But ultimately that is his choice to make.
The way I look at it is .. he invested and is currently reaping the rewards of his investment. He is free to do so just like anyone who wants to flag him is also free to do so.
As for taking money out of the reward pool, that is what we are all here to do. We didn't invest to just keep our funds on Steemit forever. We want a return on our money / time. And as you said .. the reward pool belongs to everyone so each individual gets to decide what to do with their share of it.
And that takes me back to the bid-bots. I don't view it as stealing. When you pay for a good and receive that good or service it isn't theft. The buyer gets a return on their purchase. Didn't like the return ? Don't use the service again .. just like you would do in other aspects of your life.
I should clarify that I’m not trying to act holier than thou and say my moral compass is better than anyone’s. I’m not a bidbot owner so I’ve never been in their shoes. I acknowledge that it’s easier for me to criticize them when I’m not the one making the decision. On the flip side, it’s not in their interest to do what’s best for the site, so they can’t be relied on to make ethical judgments either.
You weren't coming off that way and I hope I am not either. Nothing wrong with a healthy debate / discussion.
I am on the fence about bid-bots. Remove them completely or join in seems to be where my opinion on them is headed. Admittingly I still have some research to do before I form a complete opinion on the matter.
I agree with the contest part and promoting interest articles.
Isn't it the beauty of the site to be found by people who really are interested in the contents of our publications ?
The bot aspect is like being on a double-edged sword you can get a lot of upvotes (some bring you 50+ upvotes). In a way I would feel more comfy with the idea of having people voting directly for contents and providing comments instead of comments like:
"Congrats you got an upvote of.0.9% courtesy from @name6 (often the author himself)"
Bots are great when used to promote a post from another member we appreciate to read instead oneself.
I know that you offer such service regularly 😉
Sometimes it just needs to be a matter of unselfishness, I think this is also the philosophy of the steemit.com founders.
What's your take ?
Giving a " tip " to an author is great use of a bidbot.
The purpose of having the XX amount of upvotes on your post is to make the article look active. For example someone is browsing Steemit and both you and I have an article on cooking.
For this example both our articles contain the same information and is equally as good as the other. One article bid bots were used on and fake upvotes purchased and the other article is organic.
The article that the bidbots were used on would have more cash value added to it and show more upvotes and likely more replies due to the article being in the " hot " or " Trending " Page of its tag. The organic article would have less making the article look less active. And while they both may contain the same info ... the user browsing Steemit is going to naturally click the article of interest with the most activity on it due to the fact it looks like that is what everyone else did, making the promoted article look like the better article.