I bought up-votes today. Here's why.
#Sellout
Atrocious, I know, but let me explain. Basically, this is just an experiment. I simply wanted to try and see for myself how the broken SBD peg affects the payouts on a larger scale than my regular payouts.
I still think that buying up-votes and self-voting is not the way to go on this platform and I'd love to see many of the proposed changes come to reality.
This is the post that I've bought up-votes for. For today's post, I will refer to today's prices of SBD ($3.40 USD) and STEEM ($3.94 USD). I will monitor the potential payout value, as it may decrease over time. There will also be a second post after 7 days when the payouts have been transferred to my account, in order to determine whether the trade was profitable or not.
Here is how much I've sent to each platform:
| Name | Sent | Refund | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| @smartmarket | 5 | 1.144 | 3.856 |
| @minnowbooster | 5 | 0.417 | 4.583 |
| @anonwhale | 0.6 | 0 | 0.6 |
| Total SBD | 10.6 | 1.561 | 9.039 |
9.039 SBD translates to $30.7326 USD
Shortly after sending the SBD, I received around 134 up-votes worth approximately $17.23, well at least that is what the Steemit frontend says. If the peg had not been broken, that 9.039 SBD would have translated to $9.039 USD. Let's see what are the payouts really worth.
| Name | SBD | SP | Total USD |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pending payout | 8.62 | 2.19 | |
| Market price | 3.40 | 3.94 | |
| Total USD | $29.308 | $8.6286 | $37.9366 |
As you can see, the actual value of the payouts is $37.9366 USD. Thus, the post has made a profit of $7.204 USD so far. We will have to deduct 25% from this for the curation. This gives us the grand total of $5.403 USD. Not bad.
Closing this down, if you still think I'm a sellout, go watch this video.
Wait till you get whitelisted in minnowbooster you get an even bigger upvote profit but its like an elite club and the only entrty is you have to make good quality posts like these
Not that I wouldn't mind making more money, but I really do think manual curation is the way to go around here.
Though I don't think voting bots should be taking as a way for profit making but your sharing is informational. Soon you should be whitelisted in MB for bigger votes buying ability.
This is exactly what I say in the first two paragraphs of this post. :) Though it is tempting to get myself whitelisted and earn even more, I'm not going to do that because I think manual curation is the way to go around here.
There is one exception, if you think your content is really good and high quality. Feel free to buy as many votes as you want for the visibility as it worths it, and you won't be feeling guilty doing so nor you will be worried for being flagged.
Interesting view on things. I do like the idea of getting more visibility. However, there are other ways to get noticed as well. Like @abh12345's Engagement and Curation Leagues. You can read more about them here.
To me, this is more of a question of moral values, but who knows, even those change over time.
You have to deduct 25% (curation).
See. This is exactly where the UI is confusing. Thank you for correcting me. I would have found this out after payout, but it's better to know it in advance.
I have edited the post in order to accommodate for the curation rewards.
Sellout's a bit rough, I think, for what you're calling an experiment. :)
It will be interesting to see how much the payout adjusts, though. I had a post that shaved roughly $2 off before it paid out.
Sellout is a marketing strategy, haha. 😂
Yes it will. Initially, I forgot to deduct the 25% curation, but even after that I think the post will be profitable.
Profitable being relative, and how often that or a better profit can be realized. Which means, more experimentation. Or I guess, in marketing terms, selling out. :)
What do you mean by realizing a better profit?
Oh, I was just trying to say that if you realized, for example, a 2 SBD profit on one post with bots, and then turned around and had a 1 SBD profit on the next and it never really went higher than 2 SBD, that wouldn't be so great. But if you were able to maintain the 2 SBD average and higher that would be an example of a better profit. You'd be hitting the same profit you started out with consistently, rather that being your high and going down hill from there.
Are you saying that, provided I would be buying upvotes regularly, it would be better for me to start lower and build up gradually?
I guess it makes sense to spread out the votes. The thing is though, you never know when things start to really take of thanks to your position on the trending/hot page. In that case, having more posts with lower votes seems less of a opportinity.
Sorry. I must not be communicating my point very well.
Let's see. I was just trying to say that if you're making a consistent profit where it doesn't go below a certain level, but might go up on a occasion, that might be worth it, depending on the size of the profit from using the bidbots. However, if over time, use of the bidbots caused a decrease in profits, that wouldn't be so great, nor would it be if your initial profit wasn't what you obtained with the first go. In other words, the first experience would not be indicative of any other successive experience.
And yes this was only if you continued your experiment. Wasn't at all trying to encourage (or discourage) the use of bidbots, or give advice on how to use them, because I don't know any of that.
And I agree, if someone is using the bidbots to get onto the trending page but isn't paying a bunch in SBD to get there, they might as well save their money, or hope people are going to the trending pages of the specific tag where their post may or may not get noticed there.
Ah, I see. I realize that in order to create any reasonable data, I would have to conduct more instances of the experiment.