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RE: Steemit is Neither FAIR nor EQUITABLE — and Why This Post Will Never Make it to Trending
When I first started, @randowhale was a good way for me to send an appreciative tip, as my vote was worth nada. Self up voting in the way described here should be banned, I've seen so many start up vote selling scams that's votes are less than mine selling for 1steem, it's ridiculous.
Well, although I am not fond of these upvote bots, I do believe they can be appropriately used to give SOMEONE ELSE a reward, when warranted.
I have also used them on a couple of my own posts that were scam/phishing warnings that I just wanted to give an instant wide distribution to.
Last but not least, as you can see from the banner at the bottom of my posts, I am part of "Steemit Bloggers" which gives an extra upvote to three "choice" posts every day... again, that's merit based, not self-purchased.
I'm all for the ability to buy an up vote for someone else, rather than oneself. And curation groups like steem bloggers is a wonderful idea that I'm sure garners you searching more across the site to find undiscovered and under appreciated talent. As for using them to promote a post, would it not be more productive to simply hit the promote button, and send your coins to null, than propogating and perpetuating the self 'bot' vote?
The thing that makes upvote bots kind of dumb is that the "human greed gene" (also known as a variation of "capitalist market forces") will automatically render any loophole the appears to be "money for nothing" a zero-sum game.
If I offer to sell dollar bills for 80 cents, I'm going to SWAMPED with people wanting to buy my dollar bills till I readjust the price back towards one dollar. Most people see bots as a way to "get ahead." They are NOT, any more than playing the slots is a way to get ahead. Sure ONCE IN A WHILE you'll win, but most of the time you'll lose. However, the house (aka the upvote bot operators) ALWAYS win. People are actually PAYING them for something (upvotes) the rest of us give away for free.
I just "gave" you a 4c upvote because I'm free to do so, as a "tip" for adding something worthwhile to the dialogue. Or you could PAY 5c for it, somewhere. WTF?
Basically votebots drive down the value of the currency while propagating their founders. And alas our four cents goes down to three😕 I'll troll through a comment section slathered with self 'bot' votes and realize in the vote tally I gave a bigger vote for free than all they had paid for.