Bribe-A-Bots. Are they worth it?
Dear fellow Steemians,
The question comes up occasionally "Are the upvote bots worth 'investing' into?" I want to take a moment to give my thoughts about the upvote bots... who I affectionately call bribe-a-bots.
Wait, what's an upvote bot?
For anyone who may not know what I'm talking about, there are services available on the STEEM blockchain, where if you transfer your SBD to certain accounts, it will be exchanged for an upvote from a bot (an automated steemit account) which is worth significantly more than the initial 'donation'. I won't mention names, if you've been here a while, you've heard about them by now.
Are they legit?
They are not illegal, they are contractual. They are automated. They are a service. They are not dishonest, they provide exactly what they promise. They even have human customer service that work hard to offer refunds and make things work right.
There are even curation digests for post promotion and encouraging further upvotes. This alone may make it worth while, for promotion purposes.
As a service, I believe they are legitimate, because generally speaking, they follow through with the service agreements.
So what's the problem then?
The questions become this: do they help the STEEM economy? Do they help the minnows who are trying to gain a following? Are they worth it? Is it ethical to use them?
There are two ways of looking at the bots. Either as an 'investment' or as a 'bribe'.
Upvote Bots as an Investment
If I put on my accounting hat and look at it as an investment with a percentage return, I would want to know how much I'm profiting from the service.
From an investment point of view, if done wisely, the bribe-a-bots can be profitable if the upvote value is high enough.
Let's get into the numbers.
If you found a bot that would accept $0.375 for a $1.00 upvote, then it would meet the minimum requirements (in my opinion) to be worth while.
Receiving a $1.00 upvote for $0.375 'donation' would seem as if you are profiting mightily, a 267% increase! But when you do the math, it's not so attractive since you only keep 75% of your upvote and then only 50% back in SBD. So for a $0.375 SBD 'donation' you would receive $0.375 SBD back as a reward + 0.375 SP. To me, this would be a minimum to consider using an upvote bot - to be SBD neutral (not loosing SBD) and gaining the equivalent in STEEM POWER.
Who Profits Most?
From a STEEM economy point of view, bribe-a-bots profit the whales much more than the users in the end, since they receive 25% of the upvote value back again, in addition to your 'donation'. They essentially get paid TWICE.
It's true you get higher exposure, but that's difficult to quantify in terms of profitability. You also have more attractive numbers at the bottom of your posts, but they cost.
Upvote Bot Service as a 'Bribe'
Another way of looking at it is more like a 'bribe' than an 'investment'.
If that account was owned by a human and you contacted him privately and said, "Psst, If I send you SBD, would you upvote my post?" It becomes a shady, back room agreement. Imagine the smoke filled room with bill-folds being handed over.
It's Not Really that Shady
But it's not a back-room deal with a person, it's a service offered by a bot. It's out in the open, everyone knows you're receiving paid-for upvotes from a bot. It's socially acceptable. Everyone's doing it.
What is the experience really like? Dirty?
Not at all! Speaking from experience (I've used my fair share of upvote bots in the past) the real transaction with a bot is nothing like a shady Walmart parking lot transaction.
It's more like a vending machine.
Put your paper dollar in... eerrrrrrr... select which post you want upvoted.... ding. Done! Your post just received a $1.23 upvote, congratulations!
Are they a Scam?
No, I don't think upvote-bots are a scam, but they are artificial curation. The bot does not care if it's a good post of not. It sort of 'breaks' the Steemit system by upvoting based on financial compensation rather than quality.
BTW your posts may be of excellent quality, but in the case of the author using the upvote-bot on their own post, the curation is determined by the author rather than the curator.
What's my alternative, I've got all this SBD I want to invest!
In my opinion, the best use for SBD is to hodl until STEEM is low (or in a bizarre situation like now SBD is high) and then use 'MARKET' to purchase STEEM.
Buy low, sell high.
Once you purchase STEEM, it can be converted to STEEM POWER at your convenience whenever you like. This also helps boost the overall value of STEEM because of increased demand. If you repeatedly sell your SBD for STEEM, you are consistently putting in buy orders, showing potential investors that this might be worth exchanging their Bitcoin for, thus encouraging the value of STEEM to increase.
If the value of STEEM to increases, all of our posts will be worth more.
Conclusion
I leave it to the user to determine whether the upvote bots are worth while. It's my opinion that there are better options for SBD. I encourage everyone to form their own opinions on the bots, but to also base their opinion by understanding about what they are and how they work.
The people who run the bots and maintain the services work very hard, it's not just a money machine for them. But ultimately I believe too much reliance on the upvote bots will damage the value and dispersion of wealth in the STEEM economy.
I'm sure there are many opinions out there about the bots, let me know in the comments. I try to respond to them all.
It really is the bots making out on the deal. Eveeyone seems to be using them which is probably not a good trend overall. However, the community responds with flags or down votes on posts they dont feel are worth the payout.
Yes by using upvote bots, the whales win in the end. They are usually are the ones delegating their SP to a bot, so they get a bunch of those curation rewards back again. Consolidating more wealth to the wealthy. And we're pretty much just handing it to them.
I'm not sure how I feel about down votes because of bot usage... I suppose if it's clearly a garbage post and it's pumped up with a bunch of pay-per-play bot votes, then maybe.
I am shocked at how many undervalued post there are and overvalued posts there are! I think there is only so much curation a person can do in a day for actual upvotes. That's why I always appreciate the human comments on my posts. @ironshield
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
If a bot could evaluate content based on originality, photos, length, etc and issue a small upvote based on those factors, that would encourage better posts. Or a bot that issues a small downvote (flag) when content is clearly lacking. Just an idea, don't know if it would work or be abused.
Thank you for your very thoughtful reply! Some excellent thoughts here.
@ironshield
This is possible, but it is better if humans review the content. The problem is it is difficult to define good content and bad content without understanding the context. Bots are still quite far away from achieving this
This is quite true. Also Zappl posts would probably always get flagged.
@ironshield
IMO the best use for an upvote bot is to give a vote to someone else
I agree completely! I was going to say that in the post, I'm glad you said it. It is a way to support a post with a significant upvote, especially if you don't have much SP yourself. Still wouldn't want to over do it, that SBD could be another buy order for STEEM / STEEM POWER. Thank you for your comment! @ironshield
Thank you for the Boomerang bot! It's ironic receiving a bot upvote on this post, but it's appreciated all the same. @ironshield
It just worked. Bot post by Ironsheild = Ironic vot by bot.....get it? Well at least i amuse myself
Lol. Ironic shield vote by bote? Words are funny.
The one thing you have not discussed here is the 'bid' bots, the ones where you pay for a share of the payout. These are NOT a good idea imo because you do not know what your share will be. Sometimes the payout will be oversubscribed, so everyone loses except the whale funding the bot. This is not dishonest, it's just iffy.
I disagree with you about reasonable returns on regular bots. I feel that a combined return value after curation cost, SBD and SP, that exceeds your payment is worthwhile.
Increasing SP is always worthwhile. Investing in bought votes (pun intended) helps to that end.
Trust me, I'm a doctor.
I consider the 'bid' bots pretty much the same, but with higher risk. You could actually loose your a portion of your investment.
My thought process on reasonable returns is that I would like to receive back the SBD that I put in, so I could use it for other things, while gaining SP. Maybe my standards are too high, but for a paid-for upvote, that's the minimum I would want. I agree that earning SP is worthwhile, I just think it's better earned by curation rewards and organic (freely offered) upvotes.
Thank you for your comments, trusted doctor @catweasel.
Hey @ironshield,
this is a very comprehensive article you have here. I used to use upvote bots previously (for about 5days) until I realized what harm they were doing to the ecosystem. I actually thought of them as investment. But the truth is that most of them aren't much investment. In the end what you are doing is just recycling your sbd into posts over and over.
Thanks for the insight bro. Cheers!
#Hug-Challenge!
I used to look at it as a 'reinventment' by spending my SBD as it became available on various bots, but I've come to the conclusion that it's not that great of a deal. And after thinking of it as a 'bribe', it's even less appealing. Thank you as always for your thoughtful comment! @ironshield
I find the bots good as you got at least a chance to stay more than 3 seconds on the wall:
This are posts published in the past 15 seconds. One normal new user will not have the slighties chance to be seen in the see of spam generated.
You either buy at the start your way in or know somebody that helps you, else it will take months of interaction till you start to get some relevance on the site.
Also there are investors who don't have time to curate and like the concept, they would rather invest the money so that it generates a cahsflow. Bots are good for that. They will not destroy steemit, are just a part of it. Some will die like bellyrub did this week, some will help the authors to get visbility. The only factor that affects steemit is the human greed.
Ah yes, the three seconds of fame. Three seconds on the trending wall could gain you a few views, possible upvotes maybe even a follower. But there is usually little to no engagement.
It takes months of consistent curation and commenting to build a following, then it takes months of consistent content generation. Personally, I find it entertaining and enjoyable and to a certain extent profitable. And I enjoy the people here. Are they being phony and nice to try to get upvotes? If I were a whale, maybe. But my upvote is tumbleweed.
My theory is that there is not enough monetary incentive (at least right now) to justify the time it takes to make enough money to satisfy human greed. Maybe for the whales, but for most people here, no way. Most people here are blogging for different reasons.
Thank you for your insightful comment.
@ironshield
The incetive can grow if the demand of Steem grows. This can grow with influx of money from outside from investors. The bots investment can attract investors. Steemit needs to make it attractive in some way for people to put money in.
The trending system is tricky, if one manages to come into trending a couple of times in a week will be added to the autovotes from whales as they target curation, the so called circle jerks.
There are some good content creators that use the bots to accelerate the process from months to weeks. I see nothing wrong with it especially for the ones that are good.
With the bottracker some bots will be killed, like bellyrub this days as the maximum earnings will drop to 75% of the vote value. This is good. We will see some direct vote selling from big whales, not directly from bots. Would this be ok? Bots are not bad or good, they are tools in here. The humans make the system and abuse it.
Some will not have the time to curate. I have to pledge guilty on this as I took some favourite accounts and vote them on time for perfect curation and only after I check what I have voted. Sometimes I remove the vote if I don't like the content.
Thank you for the reply. :)
Im not sure im paying anything for my bot. It just upvotes the people im trying to support
You're probably using steemvoter.com, which is a useful tool. It's not the bribe-a-bot of this article. @ironshield
I don't think it is worth it from a credibility point of view. I won't say I have never used them.
I have used them when I have put hours into a post and I am looking at walking away with .12 for it and no interaction. But, time and patience have its rewards. After a month or two, things pick up a bit and I still get pretty low payouts, but, I am having fun, so what the heck.
I just feel like there are too many and it no longer says anything about your writing or photography when you can buy yoursel votes.
I know the feeling of working hard on a post and only having a few view and a few cents. If you have patience and enjoy blogging, keep it up and you will see your time investment grow.
One thing that may help is installing @armandocat's chrome extension called Steemit More Info. This will give you insight into your voting power, voting value, etc. It's really enhanced my steemit experience many times over. It adds features to steemit.com that I believe should be there anyway. It takes some of the mystery away.
I'm following you!
@ironshield
I do have patience and the understanding that things do not happen overnight and for the most part, one must earn the respect and friendship of others. So, I am not upset in the least.
It was the not understanding that was the killer. :) Thank you so much for the app. I will be looking into it!
I'm following you too!
I used to use them heavily, but I've backed down on their use quite a bit lately. It's a bit of a hassle and doesn't seem very sporting, though it is useful for getting up to the 500 Steem Power mark.
It took me a lot of effort to get over that first 500 SP mark and I made the risky venture of investing actual cash into the platform to get over that bump. Since then I've come to see that with steemit, it's always better to EARN Steem than to BUY Steem. Unless you're getting it for $0.10 or something. @ironshield
Upvote bots or bidbots are not for profit, you simply buy an ads for your post to gain attention,
But in the side, it helps your post to get visibility!
All in all, bot always win!
And I merely using bidbots!
I suppose that is at third perspective. Investment, bribe (or bid), or paid advertisement @ironshield