RE: Detailed Opinion on Appropriate Use of Upvote Bots, Bot Abuse, and Quality Content!
A lot of it is so subjective to the viewer of the material, like you said. Those who supported reducing the amount of time to 3.5 days have worked to make it more objective, but I've heard of people getting flagged for using bots that allowed votes on posts after 3.5 days, but the user was doing it before 3.5 days. I don't want trouble, so I just stick to bots that cap at 3.5.
It's a complex issue. There are some who say bots shouldn't be allowed on here. At Steemit's purest form, I think they would not. I think you would see each person manually voting on each post they liked or didn't like. You wouldn't have votes being bought/sold. It would be a manual rewards system. As it is, I use bid bots from time to time. They haven't been very profitable, but when you're starting out, anything that gets good exposure helps. I work to only put out useful/informative/entertaining content though so hopefully people don't have an issue with my posts.
You did a good job of summarizing the discussion. I'm curious to see what comes of it.
You've hit the nail on the head there:
I agree with this entirely, but I think one of the main issues is that it's quite difficult for newcomers to get noticed and earn much at all. Ignoring the fact that many bots are actually negative ROI due to last minute bids, you can clearly see the appeal.
As the number of users grow on Steemit, there is more 'competition' for those high paying upvotes from dolphins/whales. I have used bots a couple of times, either breaking even or seeing a slightly negative ROI, but my main reason for using them was to try to gain a little exposure.
Exposure for newbies who create good quality content is a really logical use of bid bots. But then the bots will miss on big money coming from whales and dolphins. So much to debate about.
I was of the same opinion and for my intial six months, I hardly used bots outside testing purposes. To be very honest, I have accepted the fact that bots exist and people use them. I know that I cannot do anything about their existence. I will, however, advocate for some measures which can reduce use of bots by most people and the SP delegated to bots may be retrieved, leaving just enough to support newbies only.
Because my peers use bots, their posts outshine mine regardless of what effort we bring in. Bots have become necessary. But I would love to have a system where people do manual curation. As long as that system is not implemented, it is useless to sit back. Why not avail the opportunities rather than seeing your posts and rewards shrink? These are my honest thoughts.
That would be great. I've done fairly well, but I see a lot of people who are struggling to get ahead at all. I think Steemit's long-term success will be in getting a healthy, upwardly-mobile middle-class. If the existing whales just eat all the food, the minnows will die off. If the minnows leave, there won't be much value to Steem as the only people who will be posting will be the 30 whales.