Question for My (Active) Followers: What if I Gave in and Bought Votes from Bots?
So, I've been thinking about this recently. For quite a while, actually.
There simply seems to be no winning here - unless you're one of the insiders - outside of buying the votes from bid bots. Growth is impossible since posts just disappear into the endless void of the New feed unless you get that big whale vote early on.
If you don't, it's game over after the 30-minute mark. Every time.
I haven't been posting up to my standards in a really long time, and I'd like to, but the rewards on Steemit don't make it worthwhile to put any kind of effort into these posts
It'd be different if everybody was making a dollar, but since other posts are making thousands on average, it sours the experience a little.
My plan would be to power up - but instead of powering up instantly, I'd buy votes first to gain visibility, then powering up the rewards.
I don't like the idea of giving money to the bot owners, but if one wants growth and visibility, what's the alternative? I'm honestly all ears, I haven't been able to figure anything out. I've tried all sorts of posts and nothing does it these days. It's impossible to even know whether the posts are good enough simply due to the fact that they don't get seen by enough people to get any sort of meaningful feedback.
It's kinda like doping in sports; if you're the one honest idiot not doing it, you're guaranteed to lose to all the smart cheaters doing it.
Sometimes you just gotta play by the rules. The individual never makes the rules, he just adapts into a shitty situation. That's how capitalism always works.
I have a few followers, though, and the people who do follow me tend to be against the bots - I would assume - so I wanted to ask if my plan would make them consider stopping supporting me. I wouldn't want to trade the actual human followers for the bot owners, honestly.
If someone is making $20 from every post due to bots, it is easy to forget to upvote with my 0.0159 at 100%. Nothing personal but it would seem my vote has been reduced to pixie dust anyway. About half my Steem was earned, the other half was purchased, but at the current rate it doesn't make financial sense to buy more Steem because I have to pay too many people to go from Euro to Dollar to BTC to Steem; I might as well stop at BTC and save some overhead.
I did not purchase Steem to see it trickle into the hands of bot owners and on the 2 or 3 occasions I tried bots myself, I can't say I gained anything of value. To say I lost money would be more accurate and if I wanted to interact with bots I could have a few bots living in my kaputer that I won't have to pay with Steem/SBD.
I will still follow you, bots or not. Greetings!
Yes but I think his point was to gain visibility, not to "earn" from it.
On this platform visibility and payout are more or less the same thing, hence the need for bots.
Honestly dude, I have nothing against the bots. I've used them quite a bit in the past, for basically the same reason that you outlined above. The only issue is that it actually does add a little bit more work into posting, which is more or less why I just don't bother these days. I don't have very much time to be on Steemit at all, let alone post, and then put extra effort into promotion. If it would cause you to post more, I say go for it, you are literally one of the only ones that I bother to follow and read around here, so it would be a terrible shame to see less, and really nice to see more of your posts.
I think is about deciding why you write around here.
If its only for the rewards, sure, Go ahead and try to use the bots for profit. Also there is some alternatives for big payouts, like utopian, steemhunt, etc.
If its visibility you are looking for, then bidbots is definetly needed, but for that you need to have some big bucks to invest in the promotion (maybe with profit, maybe not), but also expect some flags.
If you Just want a place to write stuff you enjoy to write, with the rewards being an extra incentive, i would say make a light use of them (like i do), and use the profit to grow your account, Just dont expect that It Will reflect on an audience growth.
The system is what It is, and to me, as long as you are enjoying what you are doing, everything Else is fine.
I for instance, will keep enjoying your random ramblings, and giving an upvote whenever i can, no matter If you use them or not.
Ask yourself how many times you engage with others. It is not a criticism at all, just want to point out the difficulty of constantly being noticed unless you are automated by users.
Bots are always an option, and whatever you choose is fine I guess (we are free to do whatever we want).
My own strategy (which has not really worked so well though) has been to engage and try growing with a bunch of us who engage frequently and want to increase our SP.
You could also delegate to Steem Ua and other great projects on ground (if any).
No amount of advice may give you exactly what you want though, so it ultimately still falls on you. Whichever you choose, best of luck
I don't engage much anymore because I tried it already, and I got no results. The thing is, the meaningful users generally fall into one of two categories:
And I have nothing to delegate. Maybe after I've grown my account using this strategy, I'll just do what everybody else has already done and delegate to bots for passive income.
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STOPIsn't it a waste of time buying bot votes... the payouts aren't actual earnings after all... you have to minus what the author paid for them.
Also it makes me cringe - seeing people buy votes for themselvs via bots when the posts simply aren't worth that amount.
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It's my understanding that there's some sort of game to it. I'm not super knowledgeable of the bots myself, but if you look for the best opportunities, you can make a profit.
But I'd need to look into it.
I tried it a while back with small amounts - it's hit an miss and soul destroying!
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Steemit is soul-crushing, no matter what you do.
Unless you have the right friends, of course.
Or you just blinker yourself to the trending pages?
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I'm not convinced that being on the trending page really matters these days.
It's profitable, you get some steem extra. Suppose you send 1 steem and you get around $1.8 vote then those 80 cents in steem is profit.
Profitability depends on how much bidders are in particular round and all that stuff. You can check steembottracker.com.
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Yup - but it does vary. Possible to break even too.
Wonder if theyre any more profitable now steem's declining?
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Hi my name is @friendly-fenix and Im a bot addict!
Im a plankton, and I pretty much follwed @yallapapi's #sharkschool advice to some extent, and used different upvoting-bots in combination with resteeming-services/bots...
(But this only works if you offer headlines/content that "the people" using "steemit" enjoys to read and upvote, and you really have to learn how to use https://steembottracker.com , and for some reason it's getting harder and harder to get a positive ROI on them bidding-bots )...
Anyway, I guess you can say that it has worked okay for me, if we look at it from a "fantasy perspective" where we live in "STEEM-land", and the USD or other fiat money don't exist... Then I think my "ROI" has been a bit on the "plus side" and it did help me find a larger audience.
But because of the price of STEEM going down, this whole project has been, me paying to play with "new-socialmedia".
But that is okay, Im fairly confident the crypto-market will recover and Im not really here to make money anymore anyway, (if that happens I will be really happy). But if the STEEM price drops even more I don't care at this point, as long as people here can keep cool and treat one and other in a decent way, and write some nice comments, interact, Im going to stick around and post...
Thanks for sharing your ideas, you should try and mess around with some bots now that the market is low, it's a good time for some trial and error...
/FF
To me, it is a business decision.
I do not like the idea of buying votes, and i manually vote for everything.
But, i do not hold it against anyone else.
However, i do not upvote an already high paying post.
I do not even consider buying an upvote from a bot because i do not write constantly and consistently enough. It would be a waste of money trying to promote myself when i don't maintain audience focus.
I will say that you need to get rid of the chip on your shoulder towards those who are gaming the system (and winning?) because if you keep that chip, and also buy into the system, you will resent everything, including yourself, and it will show and you will fail.
Nooooooo, do not cave in! Stay strong! I believe in you! Stay with us! Do not flatline! It's not an option! You matter! Your life matters! Your texts matter! :)
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Personally I think it's your choise.
If you cave, I will still read your posts. I do not promise I'l talk to you every time, but I will promise you that I will try my best to upvote you with my upvote that equals shit in money but is invaluable and irreplaceable in every other way. Spiritual capital, you know.
Join the village idiot!
I honestly dont even know how bots work since I've never really tried or looked at them. Maybe I should tho... let me know how it goes if you do dabble a bit.
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I will!