There's a huge controversy raging at the moment about the use of bid-bots especially and the fact that creators of terrible content (also known as shit-posts) use them to generate huge rewards for themselves in many cases. This, of course, does nothing to improve the generally crappy content quotient on Steemit and I agree it would be nice if this problem didn't exist.

But for a new user visibility on Steemit is a huge issue -- one the developers need to address more aggressively, but they show no signs of doing this. If one is a creator of decent content (and there's a wide margin of discretion in defining that) and "rewarding" yourself for your effort to a modest extent gives you the help you need to keep on writing and the inspiration / psychological boost to make this effort worth your investment of talent and time, then I think this is overall positive for Steemit.

It also allows you to get some traction ... until you can travel more easily under your own "steem" ... and if that keeps a quality content creator on the platform, adding his (or her) weight to counterbalance the amazing amount of dross one has to wade through to find something interesting, entertaining, inspiring, informative, worthwhile and / or well-done .. again, I'd say this is a good thing. I have no problem with people who do good work getting compensated for it -- in whatever way that comes.

But I also agree the crap-factor on Steemit is depressing, and vote-bots or not, it's dragging us all down. That their "creators" are also able to get handsomely paid for it adds insult to injury. Some new bot developers are trying to address the problem by personally / manually curating the content their bots vote on. But as a curator myself for a group (you may have heard of us. [grin] ), I sympathize totally with the massive task they face in trying to do that.

Coming up with some kind of "community-wide black-list" for the repeat offenders is going to be mandatory. (Accounts that can't get a bot upvote on anything the longest day they ever live. One strike and you're out!!) A place where people could submit links whose quality they question for review could make this a communal project and take some of the weight off the shoulders of bot-owners / developers, some of whom may honestly be trying to do the citizenry a service.

IMO (and experience) though, the bid-bots are mostly a boon to their developers because (as I've written several times elsewhere) you not only have to do all your calculations correctly when making your bid, you have to be very, very lucky besides. (Worse than the gambling tables in Vegas.) Otherwise, you stand a very good chance of not even making back your original investment. Personally, I will never use one again. (Once was enough.) I've called them "a suckers' game" elsewhere. I stand by that conclusion.

from #theunmentionables