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RE: Why free downvotes are a good and necessary part of STEEM
Thank you for your answer. We don't see eye to eye on this, but we agree on one thing: "When vote buying isn't profitable any more it will get less." So why not wait for that blessed day and bully people instead? In fact, vote buying was a valuable tool for visibility while it lasted, but it was never profitable.
A few bots at least even promised a certain profit. Maybe you used the wrong ones? :D
Downvotes are not bullying, they are the only way to cut into the profits of vote sellers, by taking away their curation rewards and their customers. It's not going against the person who buys directly, only against the act of buying.
I wouldn't know. I didn't use any bots. I bought votes from @smartmarket, and the supposed ROI never really worked out for a variety of reasons. For me, that isn't the issue. I want it for visibility. Anyway, @smartmarket is no different from any other automatic curation trail, with the exception that "money" changes hands. Behind it all is a large number of real people, most of them "little" folk. A whale downvote does damage to them as well as to me. How do they not have the right to use their vote as they see fit?
I reiterate, I never had a problem with organic downvotes because I strive to put out reasonably good content. What I object to is the bullying kind. That's just not how it's done, period. A minority in their teens kills the potential profits of a crowd of sometimes over 1,000 with their strong VP to bend them to their will. If that's not bullying, I don't know what is.
Everyone can use their up- and downvotes as they see fit.
Most downvotes go against voting behaviour which is against the best interest of the platform, and opposing to the value proposition as described in the whitepaper. Steem was created to crowdsource the best content, and negative voting is a part of it to explicitly be used against colluding groups and "defective voters". If selling votes isn't defective, I don't know what is.
You're beginning to sound like a cheerleader. "The best interest of the platform" is good content towards the top of the trending list. I like to think I provided that until some people saw fit to interfere with me. Even my shorter, newer, non-video posts aren't junk.
It doesn't work and it never will, as I explained earlier. People will always band together and scratch each others' backs regardless of skin quality. Trying to force what can't be will only serve to drive some of the best content creators away. Ask yourself why no star Youtubers are flocking to the Steem. There is your answer.
Agreed. But it is being used only against the little folk. The big fish are happily colluding like they always have. So that mechanism doesn't work either; it only creates unfairness and negativity. So why cheer for it?
Youtubers don't come because of the back scratching and the need to buy visibility, downvotes have nothing to do with it.
I came to steem because I liked the ideas described in the whitepaper, and I will do whatever I can to make them work. It's possible that it can't be, then we're all wasting our time. I'm not ready to give up yet though.
Slowwalker is far from a little fish, but our power is limited. One after the other, the system was broken a long time and people got used to it, it will take a long time to revert (if possible).
Downvotes are not used against colluding small fish, they go against the defective voters aka bots - it just happens that a lot of small users are their customers, but the size of the guy buying doesn't change anything, the downvotes hit all buyers.
You feel entitled to move your own content up to trending, but that's not how it should work. Everyone thinks their shit is the greatest. If you can't accept that and only can point to others doing wrong too instead of helping to do something against it, it's maybe really best to leave, because your entitlement won't stop us in our efforts to steer the ship around and you seem only to be dedicated to reinforce what's been going wrong all the time.