Who are real winners on Steem platform?
Why I had to take help from bid-bots?
I joined Steem platform in March 2018 and so far I am satisfied with my journey. I have made 64 posts and more than 400 comments on other users’ posts and received about $25 equivalent SBD and SP as total reward amount so far.
I could earn this amount only after buying 75 Steem coins early this month. I converted some of those Steem coins into Steem power and SBD. I realized that without the help of bid-bots I cannot make my post popular or worth to pay attention because most of the time minnows and planktons are busy in up-voting some whales’ posts, or some trending post in a hope to earn some curation reward or to win whales’ attention. I saw many outstanding articles and excellent posts which should be popular but their total payout could not go beyond quarter or half of a USD. So, I decided to take the help of bid-bots. With my SBD and Steem, I bought up-votes from bid-bots. This really helped me. With this my posts could get some attention of fellow steemians.
Why planktons and minnows rush to up-vote whales’ and trending posts?
Planktons and minnows are mostly new users of Steemit. They wrongfully think that their every up-vote can earn them handsome curation reward. In fact they don’t know much about how curation rewards are distributed. They think that some post is becoming popular and lots of people are voting that post so they should also not let this chance to slip out of their hand. In fact they follow herd mentality. In a herd every member tries to follow the course which majority follows. They do not apply their mind and get nothing.
Do planktons and minnows really get handsome curation reward when they up-vote whales’ or trending posts?
First of all new users should understand how the system of curation reward works. An up-voter can get maximum 25% of potential payout as curation reward when he up-vote a post just after 30 minutes of posting time but this depends on sheer timings. If a user up-vote a post at zero minute of posting, he will get nothing as curation reward because this amount will be transferred to the author. If he up-vote a post just after 15 minutes, he would get the 50% of maximum curation reward i.e. 12.5% of total potential payout. Hence, the amount of curation reward increases linearly between zero minutes to 30 minutes from 0% to 100% after the posting time. That’s why minnows cannot get much amount as reward point if they up-vote a post just after posting. They will also get nothing if they up-vote when everyone has voted.
It should be also kept in mind that without having much SP, one cannot get much amount as curation reward. this can be seen in upcoming pictures.
Do big whales let others to share their potential payout?
Answer is simply no.
According to @themarkymark, (See) in big whales’ posts only 12 to 16 percent of potential payouts are distributed as curation reward while some minnow’s posts can pay much more as curation reward.
I experimented for two weeks and checked the facts mentioned by @themarkymark.
For this I, noted every up-vote of mine in an excel sheet and calculated the amount I received as curation reward. My experiment confirmed what he had stated. You can check this in following picture.
You can clearly see that the maximum amount which I could get was 0.012 SP, in spite of having 55 SP. So, you can easily imagine what may be the effect of someone’s up-vote if he has only 15 SP?
It is apparent that big whales mostly up-vote their own or some close one’s posts. Also they use bots which up-votes them much before anyone can up-vote them. So the minnow do not have greater chances to get handsome curation reward when they up-vote whales’ or trending posts.
Mostly big whales up-vote their own posts and comments?
It is true that they do up-vote themselves because they don’t have time to read others’ posts and then up-voting them. They also cannot up-vote comments on their posts because it becomes very difficult for them to up-vote hundreds of comments. Also, they can earn much when they up-vote their own posts. One can see how much they are up-voting himself or others by typing steemworld.org/@example on your browser’s address bar. Whales are doing what they should do but I am thinking about the minnows and planktons that are just following whales’ posts with herd mentality and wasting their voting power there.
In fact if minnow help one another, they can enhance their chances of earning much for their posts. @lucygarrod had given valuable advice to minnows in her following articles which every new user should read:-
https://steemit.com/mspsteem/@lucygarrod/advice-from-one-minnow-to-another
https://steemit.com/mspsteem/@lucygarrod/advice-from-one-minnow-to-another-part-2
https://steemit.com/minnowadvice/@lucygarrod/advice-from-one-minnow-to-another-part-3
Who are the real winners on Steem platform?
It seems that whales are the real winners here but some people are earning huge profit by just owning a bid-bot. Bid-bots earn huge profit when users pay them SBD or Steem to up-vote their posts. Bid-bots also earn handsome curation rewards by up-voting others’ posts. You can see in these screen shots of some bots which are earning huge amount as curation reward.
Hence, I came to this conclusion that bid-bots and big whales are the real winners on Steem platform.
Do you agree with me? If yes, please up-vote my post. I will also use bid-vote to promote my posts.
Disclaimer: screen shots are posted just for illustration and hence, should not be taken exhaustively.
@akdx Interesting, I share similar feelings as I'm sure many fellow minnows do. Do you see any cons of using bid bots and do they always work?
Also, aren't the bid bots typically owned by the whales lmao?
Definitely, use of bid-bots have many cons. The biggest disadvantage is that many average posts, including promotional posts, are becoming trending and getting lions share from the reward pool. On the other hand many great posts are not getting enough attention as they should have get. This is eating away the vary concept of a decentralised social media platform because this trend is distracting quality writers from the steem platform. We cannot let spams to rule this platform.
You've put a lot of effort into these tallies. It's a hard-fought problem to try and understand. I also get the promos in my wallet, but when I follow through there does not seem to be much resteem power given for 0.5 or more. I'm upvoting at $19.87 and 17 votes- 2 days old. Results: $19.88 and 18 votes. I'll see what happens next. :) I guess I need to do more research.
Thanks for your valuable comment. I think resteem doesn't work as bid-bot up-vote works because most of the resteem bots are not taken seriously by people as most of them are of low reputation score.
I upvoted your comment but I think it would have been more beneficial for you if I had upvoted your post. Upvoting a comment earns very small reward for the commentator but upvoting a post can give him/her good reward share. What do you think?
I've noticed that the curator posts are low - but they can be beneficial if the spinning wheel hits just right. I delegated all my witness votes to one guy (witness himself I think) because I liked his posts and he seemed honest. If a whale posts and is engaging with Steemians, I think that increases the popularity of Steemit. Too bad more whales do not get it.
I'll try posting about the upvote and curator vs author rewards. I need to completely digest this entire post of yours first.
I think curation reward does not matter much because one can not get much curation reward if his SP is low. Users having great SP can earn handsome curation reward. Hence, SP matters a lot. That's why minnows should understand that rushing towards trending posts cannot benefit them. Instead of it they should help each other and make each other successful.
You can see the posts of @jga (links are available in his comment) in which he made clear how the system of curation reward works.
Good info! regarding the curation, it is important to note that they are proportional to the Steem Power, meaning that minnows receive little little rewards. See the maths here.
Regarding the self-voting I just published a proposal to reduce it, and also the voting rings, if you are interested.
Thank you @jga for your comment. I agree with you on your proposal to restrict self-voting abuse which you posted in your article.
And since they already earn a ton I do my best to stay away from them. Good to hear it worked for you, I for one believe in the long haul and not feeding the oversized bots any of my SBDs. IT seems like the easy way out or something, in my opinion. Tat said, I have used them in the past but since I am looking for quality engagement I stay away from the trending page unless a genuine trending post gets me there.
To each his own. Lots of continued success to ya.
@paradigmprospector, Thank you for your valuable comment!
You got a 5.70% upvote from @emperorofnaps courtesy of @akdx!
Want to promote your posts too? Send 0.05+ SBD or STEEM to @emperorofnaps to receive a share of a full upvote every 2.4 hours...Then go relax and take a nap!
@emperorofnaps I send you 0.5 SBD for my post https://steemit.com/uttarakhand/@akdx/my-photography-beauty-of-uttarakhand-landscape but I didn't get upvote from you.
@akdx same problem with me I sent 3SBD to @ emperorofnaps But i didnt get upvote...
This is cheating. We should do something.
@akdx are you on discord?
@hrishikeshmatre yes, I am on discord.
@akdx what is your name on discord?
My name is same there i.e. akdx and yours?
This post has received a 4.18 % upvote from @boomerang.