RE: Steemit - Unraveling the "Controversy"
Couple of months ago I was thinking to buy a delegation for a few weeks or so. Luckily I've made the math before so I avoided this mistake. I've also been playing with the voting bots for 2 weeks or so and used an Excel sheet to calculate the results only to find out that it's not worth it. It not only doesn't pay off but it's damaging the organic delegation. At the beginning there was at least the incentive to be visible in the Trending section. Now imagine you are watching a movie which is interrupted by ads every minute so you spend 95% of your time not watching a movie but ads. That's the Trending section today, so it's pointless to be present in "Trending" pretty much like it always was being in "Promoted".
To me the best way to support other artists and even the system itself is to stuck with organic delegation and to resteem good content. I believe this is the only way to grow the follower audience because it always is about humans interacting with our content, not bidbots. However, since many people believe they have to use them because everybody else does it, I have doubts that Steem will survive the consequences of the rise of bots. And especially when we see alternatives like EOS and ONO at the horizon it might be a good idea to power down to have money at hand to invest elsewhere and lookout for new networks that are more oriented towards meritocracy rather than plutocracy.
In another words: Don't buy delegation, don't sell delegation to bidbots, don't use bidbots, don't upvote content that has been already upvoted by bidbots, create best possible content, upvote and resteem good content, interact only with real people.
And yeah, I'm always amused to hear from people saying they are not here because of money! :-)
It sounds like you may have used a more mathematical approach when evaluating this particular option (bots etc.). My criteria, or measuring standards, or... no idea what to call it... is different, which is why other people's opinions, no matter who they are, don't help me. It simply doesn't provide me with the information I seek.
So I must try it out for myself.
Still, thanks for sharing your insights on this matter!
And yeah, as for the money comment, looking at the existing replies here, it seems enough has been already said on that topic.
Why are you amused by that? Everybody has their own reasons for beeing on Steemit. Some people might be here for the money, some may look at Steemit as a game and some might just be using Steemit as a social plattform, where they don't have the irritations of the big social networks and where they can start anew. I think it is perfectly normal to be on Steemit for other reasons.
There are certainly a few people who are here just to interact with their friends, family and so on. But as soon as you click on Redeem Rewards (Transfer To Balance) you are here also because of that revenue, regardless what you intend to do with it .
It‘s becoming more interesting.
When I came, my reason was not money. Some people close to me know that, as I even had a correspondence on that matter. :)
But, in my ignorance of that how the system works, I was making some mistakes not being aware that these influence other people, and not for good. Of course I didn’t like that, as those are people whose work I admire. So, just because of that I was shown how to use Redeem Rewards (Transfer To Balance) , so that, when I want and like to recognize somebody’s work, this at least should bring them that little something what I was worth in steem at that moment.
So, yes, as many people, as many reasons. We all have our right to choose and encounter everything what comes along with that.
I've been trying to find the time today to reply properly to this and finally came here to do just that, when I read your comment and found that it perfectly encapsulated what I wanted to get across, hehe.
@anibas - I sense a bit of indignation in your post and please accept my apologies, I didn't mean to come across as so critical (the word justify was not exactly what I meant) but I'm glad now because it has created a forum for us to discuss this more. Thank you for taking the time to respond to my comment so thoroughly.
As @gric says, it's all about the survival of the Steemit platform. @tarazkp wrote about this excellently in this post and I simply chose not to be part of it. I agree that using bots when your content is good quality is better than spam-posting and exploiting the bot system to upvote that... But it's like vegetarianism. I don't eat meat even if I know the meat is "organic" from a grain-fed, free-roaming cow because that does nothing to help the terrible system of suffering we have in place at the moment.
So I'd rather get my votes from real people by interacting in communities and help build these communities even if I could be using the bot/vote-buying system for my benefit because in the long run, if everyone does that, Steemit will die and we'll all lose.