10 little idiots: trying to answer | if everyone delegates to bidbots?
Today @abh12345 asked what I would consider a simple enough question but one that should be considered and answered.
The question was: What if all users delegated to bidbots?
It was directed at @therealwolf on his own post, Open Discussion: Fix Trending & Stop Promotion Abuse.
Since @abh12345 didn't get a reply, I asked it again and got this:
I don't see the point of that question and I will def. not get forced to answer it. There is no reason (!) to think about that case. If you are against bid-bot delegations, then say it - but don't ask ridicioulus questions which are simply trying to put fear in people. - @therealwolf
So, here is my point:
The point of the question is: if the bidbot system (the one you develop and defend) is fundamentally beneficial, than everyone should delegate all they have to them as it will be in the best interest of both platform and individual. - @tarazkp
He has also seen this question as a personal attack on him although he seems to have ad-libbed that into the lines himself (here is the comment where I asked) but, perhaps in all of the other comments I didn't read, there might have been attacks on him so I reiterated:
I put no blame on you other than as one of the developers and 2nd largest operator. There has been no personal attack made by me as to me, it doesn't matter who you are. However, developer and 2nd largest operator implies a certain amount of expertise, knowledge and carries responsibility as such. - @tarazkp
Now, since no one seems to want to answer this question and I am apparently a ridiculous person who wants to know the answer to it, let me try to answer it by myself. Again, the question is: What if all users delegated to bidbots?
10 little idiots
Imagine that the pool has 100 units in it. There are 10 users in that ecosystem and each has 10 units of stake. Each person delegates all of their available stake to a bidbot and waits for the money to roll in.
Now again, IF delegating to bidbots is fundamentally good for steem and the community, I recommend ALL people to delegate to them and really give STEEM the boost it needs.
Waiting, waiting, waiting....hmmm. It is awfully quiet in this little ecosystem... ah, posts. of course!
Person 1 posts.
Person 1: "Ummm... anyone got a unit I can borrow to order the bot? No? How about an upvote so next week I can... No Power? Yeah, me either."
Of course that isn't going to work is it? They need external investors! Enter person 11.
Person 11: "So, I post and give you a unit and then you give me 1.3 units back while you keep the whole unit? I keep doing this, you grow at 3 times the rate of me but, at some point, I can delegate to the bidbot without posting and make what you are making now? But, at that point, there will again be no one to order the bot. It sounds like we are just paying ourselves..."
People: "But we keep bringing more investors in!"
Person 11: Oh, so each new person brings a unit with them to buy into the system and work their way up the...umm.. pyramid?"
We seem to have run into a little snag.
Is this the answer?
What if all users delegated to bidbots?
If everyone delegates to bidbots, they will have absolute pull on the pool (all of it) as maximum stake will be invested into them with stakeholders sitting back and waiting for a return. No new users are able to make a cent as there are absolutely no voters in the system other than the bidbots. If they pay, it is no longer a free system, if they post, no one is going to read it anyway as they are waiting for the money to roll in. So, why would they join such a community?
What if all users delegated to bidbots?
It is a ridiculous question, isn't it? You'd think that a developer of bidbots, the owner of the second largest bidbot and defender of bidbots would have answered it quite easily as anyone can see that it is untenable.
The only reason they work is because not everyone delegates and there are enough current idiots willing to put up with low payouts while a small minority draws the majority from the pool. What happens when they get tired of the struggle, what happens when there is real competition?
Again, if these bidbots are healthy in their current form, all should delegate. -- Oh, too much of a good thing? Indeed.
Answered?
That is how I see it but again, I am open to all of the ifs, ands or buts. If someone can show me the fundamental goodness of the bidbots for the Steem ecosystem I will happily delegate all of my stake to them and campaign that every user, new and old, put all of their stake into them also. That way, we can all sit back and become really rich. Our community will be the envy of the world and everyone will want a piece of it.
Of course, they will have to buy-in at the ground floor level and work their way up.
Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]
Steemit should be called greedit.
indeed.
Edit: btw, was that your first full proper comment self-vote?
Aww, I’d like to say yes but no, I’ve full comment-voted before. Only when I feel that I’m getting ass-raped by the platform though. More often in the last 3 weeks than ever. I think my first full comment-vote was only a few weeks ago though. I’ve refrained previously.
no point in doing it really. not worth it even though it might make you feel better :)
Yeah, I guess. Feeling pretty negative about steemit at the moment. Enjoying the writing but hate the way people keep saying how community based it is when maybe it is more weighted towards feeding those at the top. Pyrimad schemes got their name from that model.
Anyway, I’m still posting, hopefully, with some validity and haven’t quit my day job yet. I don’t use bidbots.
who knows, maybe things will get better after hivemind updates or perhaps worse. Seems that the 'code is law' overrides any sense of community here though.
Back in Fuedal Japan when two Samurai met on the road they would either do battle or not. Often battle ensued as one would want what the other had. One would die by the sword.
Actually, I’m not sure if that happened at all to be honest, but who cares, seems like anything goes on steemit! :)
as for the sense of community, ive been reading the posts on the flagging wars, and its interesting because ive heard from some that opinion flagging isnt a thing, then heard from another that the flags were meant to be a battle. im a bit concerned about this as time goes on, because of how polarizing opinions can be, and how vindictive people can be. when it comes to money, very few will not be swayed by it and they will change their behavior accordingly. its kinda creepy in a way... social engineering.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@positivesynergy/warlord-downvotes-the-number-one-steemit-killer#@miss-j/re-guiltyparties-re-positivesynergy-warlord-downvotes-the-number-one-steemit-killer-20180411t181239168z
Actually, I also did this exercise in @abh12345 post, and there actually is a situation where it works, it just needs to be bootstrapped. It goes like this:
There's some amount of token minimum needed to continually fuel the system. Though actually, they can all even make minimum bids and get a really fat bot upvote. It's really a silly exercise with 10 participants, but it works out.
There's an equilibrium between bot owners and bot voters. If the bid pool does not get filled, the reward is shifted towards bot users rather than delegators.
As I mentioned in my comment though, this scenario leaves no room for community valuation of posts. It's like an honors system to self valuate posts, and we all know how that'll go... If this were to really play out like this, we'd need a mechanism to correct valuations, and that's why these participants might need to save some SP for flagging.
And any newcomer starting with nothing is just screwed in this world. But this picture really just serves to demonstrate the Dynamics between delegators and users. The reality will be more mixed. And then there's the part where community valuation becomes almost impossible. Suffice to say, a bid bot delegation world will be a terrible world for steem.
now, what is the market value of that pool worth?
The all delegators world? Not much at all. But I also don't find it to be so realistic.
It's like we last were speculating, that it might come to needing to flag down overvalued posts. If there's enough of us that do it, I suspect we might be able to change the bid landscape. We definitely need to make bid bots much riskier.
Note that this has a double effect: people wary of bidding on bots means less bidders in the pool and less profits for delegators. Only posts that can withstand the flags would be left and that would be a natural way to arrive at a fair value for posts.
I should have commented on your last trending or trash app. I am a fan of that idea. I know about heimindanger new site and I think that'll do for the time being. But perhaps we can do better and actually have something that lets many users judge the post itself as well and collectively send it down (or up).
Indeed.
I think that one would close some of the gaps to find 'fair market value' yet, I don't think anyone is actually keen to make it happen.
If I had the knowledge to create this I would. Really think that it would take off.
The system crashes
They know it , but can't answer it do to it will hurt their bottom line . The dirty little secret kept in the closet . They need person #12 , 13 and so forth as stated above .
Keeping up the propaganda over and over that it helps the little guy and beneficial to the community .
and so on and on
Simple question usually reveal the truth ">What if all users delegated to bidbots?"
I think there will never be too many bidbots for any longer period of time. The reason is simple, at the time when bidbots start putting people away, the Steem value is going to decrease and users which own Steem get hurt, this should push them to make moves protecting their investment. The only problem is that real-time stakeholders' response is likely to come with a delay (inertia) and too much of a delay may be fatal, especially that the competition is not sleeping.
That would require the largest stakeholders to be able to co-ordinate their actions.
True, but some tools are provided. Stakeholders elect witnesses who can vote changes I believe. Stakeholders can also communicate via steemit or even offline. My bet is that some breaks may be put in place if bots go out of control, but likely they aren't being considered a treat at the moment.
I am with you on this and came to a similar logical conclusion. If you don't mind I will quote myself from a comment on another post by @davemccoy
'I have made a decision not to vote for posts that use bots, (sorry to the good post writers that feel they should use them).
I think the whales and witnesses that run the bots are shitting where they eat. (Excuse my expression) but where do they think this will bring their cash cow in the end.
Maybe they want steem to end up as just a group of circle jerking bots. I don't, and with my small vote or lack there of I can try to steer it in another direction.'
I only quote myself as I have given this alot of thought and am trying to think of a community way to solve this issue. There are a growing number of users voicing their concerns about bots and I believe if it is not resolved lots of us will get the hardfork out of here.
I think that many are starting to see but, power and money do have the ability to skew the vision of people.
Nearly snorted out my coffee on reading this!!!
Hah hah.
Hello Mr Popular been busy ruffling feathers lol. Quite right in what you are saying. It's the head in the sand scenario. They all know what they are doing and they are getting away with it. You are lucky as you got involved with Steemit early on and could grow. What about the new people we are totally screwed. I enjoy this part of the platform where there is a bit of brain power and caring for the bigger picture. Don't worry about your daughter because Steemit wont exist in 5 years as there will be no growth. The concept is brilliant but has been overtaken by pure greed. Unfortunately you have a lot of rotten apples who call themselves a community. Bit like some churchgoers I know. Go to church on Sunday and do whatever during the week.
I enjoyed the comments as a lot of sense is spoken here and the replies are more than one line which is rare in Steemit.
It does appear so.
Yeah, this is what I am trying to work out. the Bidbots are not the answer.
Sometimes it gets interesting too :)
There is one solution that may work. You are only allowed a percentage of posts with bidbots. If you posted 10 articles a week why not allow a 30 percent ie 3 of the posts to be botted. That way the other 7 articles would have to be at least half decent or they get nothing. It would also free up the stealing of the reward pool. I may be wrong but it would create a better balance and at least they are still getting there money albeit a little less plus they would have to participate in the community to get back to where they were financially.
perhaps but it would require an updated list that all bots hold and not even all bots are listed. There are 'dark' bots too. It seems that profit over participation which essentially kills any concept of community.
At least it would be a start. This way you are still keeping bots for those that use them. Obviously the dark bots (didn't know about them) you can't control for now. Just saying it would be a compromise and could work.
A fair deal in business is when both parties are not overly happy. A balance has to be struck so they up it to half the posts then. That would free up half of what is being currently taken in the reward pool.
There are also the problems with alt accounts. Because there are no real enforceable limitations, even if one account is limited, they can just send the votes to another.
Solution to the problem IMO.
Why can't the promoted page work for exposure if it's truly about exposure? Well personally I've never looked there. So how about ditch the promoted tab and merge it into Hot and call it a day.
Now a minnow can buy some views but no ROI for them or any vote sellers. If the post is high quality and deserves upvotes the paid spot on Hot or Trending will get the post rewards, if not then they know they need to work on their quality.
With one payment you get X amount of views on Hot and with a high enough payment the post can be featured on Trending. A clear cut fee structure based on the popularity of the tags you want to be featured for. You want to be featured for a hot tag it costs more then a lessor tag.
Think of this like the paid spots in google search results. Paid spots are merged into the non paid spots.
Then burn those SBD helping the entire steemit community as the liquid SBD would decrease.
Member can actually pay for true promotion to increase viewership and everyone gets higher value as the Steem or SBD can be burned reducing total float.
Win-Win
The bots take away the feedback required to improve, it rewards whatever the author dishes.
But, but what about the liquid profits??
This payment would be to a burn wallet of Steemit and there wouldn't be any upvote given in exchange. You just get promotion for your payment. 100% true paid promotion.
All the bot owners claim that it's about promotion and getting exposure for the little guys. If that is the case then no vote in exchange for payment is needed, just the actual results of reaching Hot or Trending based on the size of payment.
Good luck selling that one ;)
Edit: Oh, I agree btw. Promotion price is paid to promote not to get profit from the payment.
Oh I know that...lmao. But it honestly is the perfect solution to giving the exposure that paid votes is supposedly there to achieve while not effecting the reward pool.
Thank you, Taraz, for yet another illuminating post on this whole discussion. I've never used bidbots before, but after reading some of your previous posts, as well as @m31's recent post about this, I've decided to stop buying votes from the @smartsteem service.
I would still like to know, though, if you believe buying votes from real people, who are selling their vote, is just as bad (or, bad but not as bad) as bidbots.
It is just a manual bidbot in my opinion. I could make more doing that than writing 10 hours a day but why would I care about the community?
Gotcha. Well, I can't say I won't miss the $6+ votes on my posts, but I know I'll certainly feel better about things when I get such upvotes organically! =)
When you were starting out, what were some of the ways you used to get yourself out there? I'm a somewhat introverted person, and any attempt to get people looking at my work often makes me feel awkward.
how many views are you getting on your posts?
Oh my gosh, was this you?? I just got a vote from @anomadsoul on my latest post, and then suddenly got a flood of votes from others ..! Not complaining, hehe, just curious. If so, thank you!
No but @anomadsoul is a manual curator and generally doesn't vote on the bidbot voted posts. take away the bidbots, do the work and you will find that in time, you will likely do much better without having to pay for it.
I just read it:
Another manual curator. ;)
I just saw that! And indeed, I will maintain the quality of my posts. (I'm glad to say I have never been lazy in my posting habits thinking I can just buy votes for them.)
Also, thank you for your own upvote =)
An average of around 20 views, though some of them get as high as 40-50.
The Steem platform overall has quite a few different examples of prisoner's dilemma.. where the individuals actions are beneficial to that individual, but the combined action of individuals are not the optimal outcome.
Symbolic of the world really.. now let me go off to the big chain supermarket to buy a cooked chicken for half the price that the independant take away shops can afford to sell.
Prisoner or jailer, I don't think I am overly aggressive to talk to.
Once upon a time I cooked those chickens at Coles.
the reason i bring up that coles chicken is just an example because in a way it's similar to what we see on steem.
as a collective population, we're better off to ignore the cheap chickens at coles, because if we keep buying there, eventually the independent fast food chicken places, that currently sell chickens for around $13-14, will disappear (ie. charcoal chicken).
Then when that happens, coles and woolworths will put their chickens back up to say $20, and then we're all complaining that chickens have become so expensive....
but it's almost the number one rule in economics, is that almost every smaller player will play the game as it suits their immediate need, and will rarely collude to find outcomes beneficial to many.
This, in a decentralized community that relies on each other for support.