What would Steemit look like if everyone chose to delegate their stake to a bid-bot?
At the 3rd time of asking, today I finally received a response to this question from the 'founder and developer of Smartsteem.com - biggest vote-selling market with over 3500 sellers and 2nd biggest bid-bot with over 2.4 Million Steempower'....
And here it is:
You can read the full conversation here if you wish. It does get a little 'bitchy' though, so to speak.
I had planned to add my own views on @heimindanger's 'Operation Clean Trending' post the other day, and today's discussion with @therealwolf (as above), has brought this forward as this post would have overlapped with my reply on the thread linked above.
'Shine a bad light'
@therealwolf - If you feel that a reply would 'shine a bad light' on your service, then this speaks volumes in itself. You have answered my question honestly, whilst shooting yourself and your service in the foot.
If any other witness who develops/runs/delegates to a bid-bot service would like to try to shine a good light whilst answering the title of this blog, please do.
Whitelists/Blacklists have been mostly ineffective at stopping low quality posts from reaching Trending/Hot - they are just an excuse to write another post about how they are not doing an effective job at all.
When @steemitblog can't reach trending because a new Cryptokitty has been born, or an aging guitarist likes his leather jackets being on show a little too much, you know something isn't right.
When the owner of the the hottest decentralised application to hit the Steem Blockchain so far is making negative noises towards Bid-bots, you know there are issues ahead.
If @heimindanger chooses to take @dtube to another Blockchain because the content @dtube promote is nowhere to be seen in the 'Hot' and 'Trending' pages, it will be a monumental blow to STEEM.
@dtube are one of the Steem's flagship applications, we need the likes of these applications here, and we don't need your 'Smart' service at all.
Today I am removing all witness votes to accounts I can link to bid-bots.
I know at least one Witness who's given much to the minnows over the past year and so this decision was not easy, I hope they will understand.
Have a good weekend
Asher @abh12345
If you wish to vote for a witness who has no connections to bid-bots and can actually see further than their nearest bank, @steemcommunity is one of these, and you can do this here: https://steemit.com/~witnesses
Hi Ash - I'm totally with you on this...
You did share a list already - but I have misplaced it - please would you remind me of the witnesses linked with bid-bots.
Thank you
Great!
This was the list, it may not be 100% and is 11 days old now: https://steemit.com/busy/@abh12345/how-to-make-friends-and-influence-people
Thank you :)
Thank you, just what I was looking for. Done and done. Wishing you and Paula success as witness
Thank you!
My dear friend, I'm so new here. I try to do my best to understand. I'm getting through the basics of everything such as SP delegation, curation and such. The other day I figured out that there were Witnesses we were supposed to vote for. I was talking to a friend about it here, trying to get some information. I asked a question, so is this where it gets political? He responded with yes. I ask you to please go and look through everything I've done if you wish. I genuinely want to help people. And it sounds like you do too. I had decided when I discovered witnesses, that I would probably wait a year or so before I started voting. And during that time I would do my best to research and figure out who I should vote for. But you have inspired me to double down on my researching so that I can vote. I would like to thank you so much for your enlightenment and taking time to put this out there. I also love you for speaking your heart and your mind and also for following your heart. If you do not believe in something, you should not support it. Regardless of the repercussions. Anyway, I have a busy day today and I have to go out and meet some new people, so I bid you adieu. I hope you have a great day. All of my love to you and all of yours. And may our creator bless yous.
Thank you, and thank you for taking the time to research into your witness choices. This is a long and arduos task, but I think it's one that everyone should parttake in.
This list may help start the process: https://steemit.com/busy/@abh12345/how-to-make-friends-and-influence-people
And this is full witness list: https://steemian.info/witnesses
Have a great day!
To be honest, the response really shot him on the foot. If the service was good and beneficial, no response at all should shine a bad light to smartsteem. People should generally say something good about it. Ita just like asking for peoples opinion about dlive, or dtube ...no one would have anything negative to say because these services serve for the better good. To say the least, he should be happy to get feedbacks coz they will help him modify his service for the greater good of this community.
Indeed :)
hay@asher i'am in steemit is a beginner. I do not know much about steemit. but, I always try to create interesting content and try to improve my reputation with SP.
I really like to read every post you share because it can be a new insight for me.
@abh12345 and @paulag
Good for you, I think this is a popular goal :)
Go Asher Go!
You know by now that I fully do support tour witness project! Not only because I do believe in the project but also because I do find it utmost that witnesses who really care about Steem and whom do see the money part as merely a side effect, should be heard. And have a vote when the witnesses are discussing the future of Steem!!
Thank you for your support @fullcoverbetting, I hope we can at least voice changes that will be for the better.
Cheers!
If every one would delegate to a bid bot we would have a computer have where your goal is to earn as much money as possible. While doing so you can use every possible trick and don't have to think about ethics.
How far are we from that situation? Looks like the number of bots is still growing. Perhaps even to such a high number that the request can't keep up with. I don't think you want to know how some people play this money game? Neither do I prefer to tell you what I someone's do. But I'm not afraid of sharing any info, so I might wrote another series of posts about this subject.
I thought Steemit was meant to be a social platform. If you like you can use it for such, but you won't really earn big time. Unless you are a user of the first hour.
What possibilities are there to wipe all paid upvote bots out of Steemit?
Sounds like a lovely place to be, not!
The bot numbers grow by the week, it's insane.
Without changes at code level, 0.
And those changes at code level can those be done by witnesses? Or the Steemit owner?
The Blockchain developers - steem inc.
Application devs like busy.org and Steemit can chose how they want the front end to look - hiding bidbot voted posts for example.
I honestly never understood the influence of witnesses. But it could be their influence is very limited?
I've heard that in the post one could only post 4 blogs per day. But that's neither something that can be created by the witnesses, correct?
Witnesses choose the code to run. If everything is perfectly amenable to everyone they all run the same code.
I believe they are not all running the identical code. They independently set certain variables, for instance the proportion of SBD, Steem, and SP you are rewarded with for posts and curation.
Code is infinitely mutable, and witnesses that retain support can run any code they want. If they go 'off the reservation' they are unlikely to retain support.
Mostly they are dependent on stake-weighted votes, just like your posts, so the 37 whales that own the majority of Steem choose who they want based upon the code they are desirous of, and they choose that based on the ROI they can expect from it.
That's why choosing witnesses is important.
Thanks for your answer!
I would say that's why it's important for all 37 whales to vote for witnesses. What the remaining Steemonians do is then totally irrelevant.
Thanks, Asher for putting spotlight on the "business" side of Steemit. Paying for attention is attention not deserved. And my friends are now powerless due to the fact they delegated away their power. Or powered down and moved on.
Yes this is happening all around sadly, but who can blame people for wanting to make more money. Sadly, I think this is detrimental to the platform longer term, and I obviously won't be doing the same.
Thanks for your support :)
It's clear to me at least it won't be sustainable.
You bring up a very valid point @abh12345.
I am optimistic the Hivemind/Communities feature will lessen the impact of the bid bots since the trending page will be less of an issue. Personally, the easiest way for the developers to handle this is to do away with the trending page altogether. Since it basically is a list of "paid" advertisements, get rid of it.
I agree with you if D.Tube moves to another blockchain, it would be a huge blow to STEEM. This is something people need to be aware of. Those who are raking in the big bucks by moving their stuff to the trending page might have little if the price of STEEM gets back to 6 cents.
Hopefully this becomes more of a discussion as time goes forward.
The bidded posts can be hidden, and likely will be in future - if the developers can keep up with new bots springing up - This list is tough to manage in itself, let alone a Black or White list.
Does this help the reward pool though? Perhaps. There will be a load of promoted posts gaining little visibility, seen only by the people bidding for Trending. The hope is that if you wish to be seen in a community, you have to go bot free - and therefore, will the demand for bots drop?
I freaking hope so. This is actually worth exploring more as a topic/post. If you head in this direction let me know.
And yes, as for D-apps or others leaving the chain due to lack of visibility over rubbish, this would be a huge failure. It is why I was so pleased to see @heimindanger's post yesterday. Ned was not against bots at all at the event last november, if he was pressured by the likes of the above, elear, etc, I wonder if this would change.
Thanks for your comments, you've given me new things to think about.
It's so freaking complex and as a minnow it just messes with our head. I'm not capable of trying to fix any of the problems myself and I am not in a position to take a lead, and even if I was I would have no idea how. I chose to not take part in the bid bod story anymore, I don't use them, they bring too much negativity to what I believe in steem should be about. It won't bring me the biggest profit, but I don't mind. On this blockchain it is the same as in society: lots of money makes more money. But does that bring happyness? I don't have lot's of money, I don't expect to make a lot here either. Doing my dayjob pays better. I'm not holier than the pope, but that is what keeps me happy and satisfied.
So happy to see you and paula stand up for the same ideas I stand for. I hope it doesn't backfire. You guys have my support!
Thank you Jef :)
Backfire in terms of large votes, it will - these accounts are mainly related to Bid-bots.
This is fine for me, I have no issue with however we place as Witnesses, as long as we stand up for what we think is right.
Thank you!
I made a remark in one of your posts before that voteselling and delegations is a way that some people earn from this platform and that it is basically printing money.
Your answer to me then was it is short-term and printing money till its worthless and made me think on that note because that was the week we both tested if curation earned enough or if delegations were better and we arrived at the same conclusion that we are running the long game and engaging the community rather than just making a quick buck.
I've also realized that not everyone has the time to curate or create content but we also need investors and not just mere holders but they see the value that they can get in putting money.
I have my family bought Steem and SBD to power up accounts although they can't use it to manually curate or create content they are doing their part of investing and reinvesting the gains they get. I curate for them though.
The hivemind and communities is one feature that I am really excited to see. Also we can really have a feature that curating is better compensated as well.
I like building and engaging communities but if that can pay well also then that would be super. I know if we do it elsewhere we dont really get anything back but as long as it is better to votesell and delegate people will always use the easier option.
We are the ones down in the trenches doing our bit to engage and make the community better so we are keeping a balance for now.
Now have we reached tipping point? even with the use of bid bots I still see and read a lot of interesting posts so its not yet at that point that it is all garbage but we have to make some adjustments to the system.
Yeah, we do need investors - but there are good ways to invest (for the future), and not so good ones I think.
I hope so, this could also 'hide' promoted content. This will be more pleasing to the eye, but may not make much difference to the slammed rewards pool.
Most of the engagement on low quality Trending posts, is about use of bots on that Trending post - clearly this is not what the the aim/focus of the post was! :)
I'm not sure if we are at the tipping point yet, I'll just continue this stance and see what happens.
Cheers for that (should boost you nicely for tomorrow) :D