Curation Bot’s - Race to the bottom - The Impending BOT Armageddon!!!

There is an impending Curation Crisis coming. If you want to understand why this is happening, and how this is going to change the Curation landscape, read on..

The Curation Bot as we know them are about to Die!!

Curation Bots are at war. It's an interesting phenomenon to watch. For some time (well, Steemit's not been around too long, let's say 10 weeks) some Curation Bot's have been making spectacular returns, but that is about to come to an end.

The Original Curation Rewards Algorithm:

It was simple, the Earlier you vote, the higher the share of the Curation Rewards you received (it was still relative to your Voting Power just like today). This lead to some very successful Bot's instantly up-voting (a split second after posting) any content with certain tags, or by certain authors. Curation was simply a race to vote first.

The Curation Rewards Algorithm Today:

The Algorithm is just like before, however with the addition of a 30 minute window where, the earlier you vote, the higher the proportion of your curation reward goes to the Author. So, if you vote 1 second after a post (is posted) you will synthetically be giving ~99% of you curation reward to the author. This changes on a 'sliding scale' until, If you vote 1 second before the end of the 30 minute window, you will give the author ~1% of your Curation Rewards.

This Complicated Things.. Which was the point..

So, what time do the Bot's coders set their vote to come in.. 5mins? 10mins? 15mins? 20mins? 25mins? 30mins? There is a trade off whatever time they opt for. Too late, gives other users the time to up-vote before the Bot, and take more of the curation rewards. Too early, and the bot will be giving away too much of their curation reward to the Author. This was the aim of the developers, to even the playing field and give human users a chance against the bot’s.

Well, this is where Game Theory comes into play.

Let's talk about Steemit's favourite Bot.

@wang is the original bot. But, he is hitting some problems, and unless he evolves, these problems won’t go away. @wang is very successful, and kudos to the owner of that account. They seen a big opportunity, and first mover advantage ensured they were compensated for their work.

When the Curation Algorithm changes came through, @wang set his vote to 15mins. Giving up 50% of the Cuartion Rewards, but still getting in nice and early.

Unfortunately for @wang, his success will be his downfall. This is the killer for every successful bot on Steemit. The Steemit Blockchain provides complete transparency to a users actions. So, some other clever users are sat there watching @wang making up to 900 Steem per day, and thought, "I want a bit of that..."

So, they set up a bot to 'front run' @wang (vote just before @wang). They looked at who or what @wang was voting on, and set their bot to vote at 14mins. Over time, the number of users engaging in this activity increased, and @wang Curation Reward begins to fall. So he Drops to 13mins. And so, the cycle begins once more,

@wang has gone from 15mins to 9mins over the last few weeks...This means that @wang is currently giving away over 70% of his curation rewards to Authors;

9mins/30mins = 0.166666
1-0.3 = 70%

Where does this end?

I've been a futures trader from 8 years, and I've had to change my trading strategy too many times to count. I’ve gone through 12month period of following a strategy which makes consistent money, but then, more users start to follow your lead, and eventually the ‘Edge’ is gone. The money disappears, and you have to change your trading strategy to continue to make money. There is a term;

Adapt or Die

This fit's the upcoming Curation shift nicely.

If there is one thing I know about, it’s the life cycle of a market inefficiency. Here is how it goes.

I see the Steemit Curation very similar to trading a Financial Market. There is money to be made by identifying inefficiencies (a post that should have more up-votes), however, it’s currently too easy. There is only a finite pool of funds that can go to this type of Curation Behaviour, and as number of users following the same strategy increases, the rewards for each user will tend to zero over time…

A Fast Buck Never Lasts

Adapt or Die - The Rise of the 'Black Box' Bot's and the HUMAN Being

I believe that, the current bots will continue their race to the bottom until all the curation rewards (available to their strategy) will be neutralised. The bot’s don’t get bored, they don’t need money to survive, they will keep going until their earnings hit zero. Now, here is how we all benefit from this phenomena…

Black Box Bot’s

Bot’s are going to be forced to become Smarter and Darker Beings. By Darker, I Don’t mean Evil, I mean harder to predict, operating inside a black box. In order for a bot to survive, they are going to be forced to come up with a strategy which actually finds the best content before everyone else, but in a way that they cannot be ‘Front Run’.

This means that, they won’t be up-voting certain authors work blind, they won’t be upvoting key words or tags, this is too easy to replicate. They are going to have to create some kind of artificial intelligence in order to have any kind of longevity. This in turn will help un-discovered quality author become noticed, and even-out the playing field.

Currently Successful Authors will get a Larger Share of the Rewards...
Authors are already earning a large percentage of Curation Rewards because of the Bot’s voting activity. The race to the bottom will only extenuate this. Many authors are already being awarded with 70%+ of the curations rewards, and this is only set to increase.

The Human Touch

Human’s can change quicker than Bot’s. It’s time to stop following bot’s and upvoting content blind, and time to get your hand dirty and discover new talent. The Bot’s evolution will take some time, but I believe there will be a rise in successful quality human curators and the rewards they receive.

End of the Self Fulfilling Prophesy

Some Bot’s currently have a lot of power. When they vote, it carries a lot of weight. But, unless they begin to use it in a different manner, they will lose it. This power is valuable, where one vote from them comes, 50 more follow. However, if they are picking average content, and the 50 user on their 'back' stop making curation rewards, they will lose this power. It is in their interest to adapt, and use this power for good. I expect to begin to see a more human element to these Bot’s moving forward…

Curation rewards become Economically Sensible
Curators add value, but the level of value varies when comparing a Bot to a human being. A human being reading through a post and making a judgement as to whether the author deserves a reward is certainly more valuable than a bot voting.

Bot’s do add value. They attach themselves to previously successful authors, or topics. These criteria have essentially been decided by the communities past actions (likes/dislikes), so they are almost operating themselves as a indexing function for Steemit. This however, with the recent UI update, is no longer needed, and many users will be content to see rewards for such services falling, and this in turn opening the doors to Human Curators.

Summary

Expect the Curation Rewards for Bot’s to continue to fall over the coming weeks/months. The problem is, there will be NO need to turn them off until rewards hit zero, due to the very low marginal cost of them operating. This is why the race to the bottom is happening, and this is why it won’t end.

This can only be a good thing for Steemit. This will force the Curation Bot’s to improve, and become less predictable, which will in turn help discover new and exciting talent on the platform.

It will also open the door to super star human curators. Eventually these users will carry the same kind of weight (Power) that a vote from some of the most infamous curation bots do today…

Sources
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