Awesome post @bycoleman,

I was trying for a while to understand how the whole post boosting works, i managed to get a few upvotes from minnowbooster by sending it sbd directly wrom my wallet, but it is way too transparent that way, as everything is recorded in the wallet.

Now i know there is a way to use the service without exposing your noobhood :)

Though i think those bots and services might be a not such a good thing for the platform in generally.

I have been writting posts of several thousand words for several days, just to get 9 views witout using bots, but i guess if i would invest more time in looking for "forced comments", "upvote for upvote" and all those other debatable strategies, and pehaps invest some money in the voting bots, and spend wayyy less on creating content, I would probably get more upvotes, and therefore earn much more from my posts.

So i am not sure the whole voting bots aspect of this platform is sustainable, as it might make us loose track of making good content and only concentrate on gaining influence and ratings (though it probably should go hand in hand).

But for now, steemit is a big ocean and to get ahead, you must try to cling youtr ass to a few dolphins or hopefuly a whale or two as best as you can, be those real life, human, steem-ocean mammals, or digital ones.

So thanks for the post for clarifying a few questions i have.