Upvote bots and the tragedy of the commons

I think that the upvote bots run the risk of ruining Steem for everyone

As the more attentive among you have noticed, there has been a lot of discussion of votebots on Steem recently, so I though I would add my own 2 Steem to the discussion.

I think that they current situation with the votebots is an example of the Tragedy of the Commons. A votebot interferes with the natural ranking of posts, and tends to reinforce the current popularity of posts, which means that

While we all want to be positive about the success of Steem, it is still in its infancy, with a very low market penetration, so it is highly vulnerable. One of the strengths of the upvote system is the idea that the best posts go to the top. The automated voting actually disrupts this system, and tends to promote posts that do not necessarily deserve it, which in turns dissuades people from joining and participating in Steem.

So, while the person running the bot may think they are benefiting, the entirety of the Steem ecosystem is negatively affected, which would result in a drop in the value of Steem.

Many wiser Steemians are working on algorithms and other methods to prevent this from happening. If you want to help them, you can start by simply not running a vote bot.