In Response to Shayne's Post - A Tale Of Two SteemIts.
Shayne wrote a calm post about pros and cons of the voting bots and how he thinks they will play out. Frankly I think the voting bots are taking a lot of verbal abuse because they are sometimes misused by "bad actors" and a community that is afraid of flagging. Blame the bad actors and those who do not want to spend their voting power on keeping the site clean. Don't blame the tools.
Here is Shayne's excellent post:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@shayne/a-tale-of-two-steemits
I immediately wanted to respond and explain how I currently view the situation and I also wanted to share that point of view with those who read my posts. :)
Hey Shayne,
I spent close to 18 months trying to do the things I thought were good for the platform. Manual Curation, Holding, leaving comments, putting together reasonable content. I am not an aspiring Author and I certainly don't think we should limit the site to that type of content, so I wasn't trying to get to the trending page. So, I spent a lot of time and energy, watching everyone else's stake grow while my account was lagging behind. One ends up leaving a lot of Steem on the table when you don't use autovoting and such.
At one point Pharesim was following my vote because he knew I was manually curating and picking some good content. Because he did not want to be accused of abuse, he made sure that I didn't benefit from this directly. The end result was those I was curating were out earning me every step of the way. Don't get me wrong, I appreciated the weight he brought my vote, but there was nothing in it for me. I was watching the Chosen Accounts that received first support and later delegation from SteemIt, dominate the trending page day after day. Everyone seems to have forgotten the site quit being about content long before the bidding bots.
I don't even think that "Quality Content" should be a goal at this point all the discussion about it stifles and intimidates new users and limits engagement. Cream rises to the top, let people post and vote and eventually, the steady content creators will gain attention.
During that same period while I was "doing things right" I also realized that SteemIt, Inc. isn't going to develop the front-end in any manner that is going to make it attractive to "mainstream" and our end-users and fiscal policy make our content a bit edger than other sites and most people can't take it.
Steemfest was the final blow. All the focus on SMTs and Communities. I knew that SteemIt Inc was going to encourage other applications being developed on the blockchain that will ultimately compete with SteemIt for traffic and visibility.
The game for me changed. SteemIt is just a distribution tool for steem and the reward pool is there for networking and distribution until there are more "Mission Centric" apps built.
At this point I am gathering Steem. If someone isn't using their voting power and they want to sell it to me, I am buying it.
I still manually curate, respond and engage in the community, but I am over thinking that we are building a site built on content here. That will be up to communities and app builders.
So, yes, I am using the bots, and I do not feel the least bit bad about it. I am trying to make up for lost time as well.
Thanks for asking and I enjoyed your calm non-judgemental attitude. I view the bidding bots as the greatest equalizer we have seen so far, they allow end-users to promote their content and get visibility over those we watched dominate the platform for so long. I am happy they are here and I applaud those that are using them. I also think it is a self correcting problem. As the demand grows the profitability for the end-users will go down and they will end up serving those who truly want to promote their content.
@whatsup
Good explanation there @whatsup. I personally started viewing steemit.com as a proof-of-concept when it got DDOS'ed back in October while busy.org was functioning fine. It showed me where all this was heading. Especially now with major use cases being developed (DTube, DLive, DSound, Steepshot, etc.) Steemit is just a front-end to show all that's going on on the Steem blockchain.
Using bots is a matter of why would I not use it while everyone else does ... I don't use them myself because I find it to much hassle, but I think one would sell him or herself short by being a goody two shoes while everyone else reaps big rewards.
It can be a LOT of hassle especially if you use them as much as I do. I am very bullish on this platform though so I choose to go through the crazy amount of hassle. I think new users with a few posts at .01 should definitely use a bot to get them to the .02 earnings threshold but it seems like most people on here are not real serious about this platform.
We were told to come and blog and have fun on steemit. You can read the steemit introductory page again.
So I believe on steemit, we should have fun and so ifpart of your having fun means buying votes for now, so be it.
Steemit votes typically have value. I think it makes sense to compete for those votes with content as well as bid bot arbitrage. I hope you do a good job of beating out people who aren't as much of an asset to this platform. Sorry for spamming up your comment section. Part of the spam was due to the .02 threshold that cost me 1000's of upvotes and that I can't upvote solo which is very frustrating.
Thank you for the kind words and thoughtful response!
This is an area that I want to understand better and am open to learning.
well, when you put it this way, I can't seem to think up a reply. I've been adamantly against it but my fiction stories seems to disappear even before I post them. So, yeah, I'm beginning to understand.
I think you are fairly new and what I don't think a lot of new users understand is your post would have been lost long before the bidding bots were here.
Now at least you have the ability to choose to promote it with the bidding bots ... If you choose. Prior to the bidding bots you had 0 chance to be seen.
You make some good points, but to me the main reason I don't like bid bots is that I feel exactly the opposite that you do, they make the playing field less even, just think about it, people are delegating to bid bots and their SP is tied to whomever bids for the bots votes, if I don't have SBD I am out of the game, which is the case of I'd guess at least 90% or probably more of the members. So these guys are out of the loop, only people who already have some money or are willing to invest their own money can use them to at least get to the trending page, and you can't get "real" votes because the people who have some SP have it all tied up with the bots. Great, you have people buying Steem, so the price goes up, actually the price has gone down so I don't think they have anything to do with the price.
And the thing that bothers me is that bid bots get a one-two strike, they gain whatever you pay for the vote, and then they get a 25% curation reward, so these bots are actually making a lot of money while the user gets pennies on his investment, that is if he doesn't lose or just manages to break even.
So in reality the profits you get from bid bots are just two, if you spend enough you get to be on the trending page and the other one which is more tangible but doesn't really benefit the user is that your REP grows a lot with these big bid bot votes.
In my opinion, you would be out of the game anyway. Also, why would we want to attract users who do not wish to invest? If you don't have and aren't interested in investing in SBDs, it is okay with me if you don't want to participate. If you want to grind it out the way I did, until you can purchase some, welcome to SteemIt.
So it 's just down to if you don't have money you can't make money?
If your content is good enough to really be something special, you can earn.
If you are willing to grind out the money, you can earn.
So, you think we should just distribute money to everyone? Is that sustainable?
Actually Steemit is not an equal opportunity platform, your success depends on whales or big dolphins voting for you, if these guys use voting bots like steemauto and vote for 200 different people a day things would be much more evenly distributed, we both know the quality of your content doesn't play a big part on the votes you get, you can write like Hemingway but if you don't get votes from some big guys you're not going to make much. But bid bots just take the possibility of getting votes even lower.
I disagree. They allow you the opportunity to get visibility. That is something we did not have before the voting bots.
I disagree with you. The selling of votes breaks the 'subjective proof of work' and the locking-in elements of Steem that are required for good governance of the collective budget. They are better than the circlejerk prior to linear rewards in that it's more accessible, but we can do better and bought voting is a big part of why we aren't. There will be networks similar to Steem that have better governance, and there is a very good chance they'll topple us precisely because we are so corrupt.
Steemit votes have value. I don't see how any blockchain could prevent the selling of upvotes.
It's not necessarily about the selling of votes but the poor use of votes. There are many ways we can hold each other accountable for our voting behaviour, some currently in the consensus rules but also others that have not been accepted as consensus rules.
Yeah you should upvote your comment. I would but it wouldn't count.
Your disagreement is noted and appreciated. The discussion is important and although sometimes it gets tedious part of the process.
I think corrupt is a poor choice of words though. It is a financially motivated site. I don't think that is corruption. After all it is a stake based system.
It is stake based, but it's the idea of stake providing power without responsibility that is allowing us to let the place rot. Either we have power and responsibility, and violating that responsibility would be corruption, or we have power with no responsibility ("it's my stake and I can do whatever I like with it"), which is utterly flawed.
Oh demotruc, responsibility to whom and what? On behalf of whom or what.
I agree it might be a flawed concept and some of the behavior is probably self distructive for large stakeholders, but I can't find a moral flaw in selling, renting and leasing an asset to someone else.
Responsibility to the community. It's by community consensus that power is granted, responsibility should come along with it. Steem is a project in collective governance, it's not just a social networking site. For it to work that has to be recognized, even if the goal was simply to be a social network that pays.
If it undermines the system as a whole, which is owned by not just you but every other stakeholder, that is a moral flaw.
IMHO, there is currently 0 reason for anyone to want to join this platform.
Unless you have the following.
Otherwise you'd have to be mental to be on here. People aren't voting for good content. Because I think I've made a few nice posts that didn't get me crap.
IMO as long as you aren't posting 10 times per day and abusing the bots. Do what you want.
Steemit is the centralised rollout version, shopping window to generate initial traction. The value, ultimately, comes from there being hundreds, thousands interfaces and apps, verticals.
If that understanding leads to resorting to bots, then it has been never as easy as claiming, or for those who do admitting, that bots equate to grabbing whatever you can while the fun lasts.
Well what remains to be seen is does it draw enough attention to gain value faster than inflation and bad actors.
Seem to be going okay today.
It's a dead end street. If every day a larger share is attribute to bots, and available only for pay, we won't draw positive attention to attract mid- to long-term investors.
Because it is important to understand that for anyone calling themselves a real investor, 30% doesn't cut it. In fact, 30% barely covers all fees involved for many investors. An investor typically looks for a 3-4x return. Add to that the losses on other investments and a real return worth the investment is 20x.
Crypto is unlike anything else. We aren't doing that awesomely. Today is irrelevant. Long term matters. Currently, as BTC still dominates everything and has most pairing on the exchanges... the markets are up.
It's that simple.
If some day altcoins are unpaired from the min cryptoes, then we will start to see what is the real value of each token. Independently of the day's market performance. Until then... pump & dump is the game of the day. And most cryptoes will benefit from being traded against other, stronger cryptoes.
You've done a lot right with your commitment to the platform and its userbase. Don't waste it, blinded by a quick 30% profit. We're making the platform interesting only for quick buck vultures. Not for investors.
While frankly, I just disagree with you. I hear fear, and I read a lot of assumptions stated as fact.
My career was taking off during the dot.com bubble which I worked in and capitalized on. Large investors don't give a crap who is on the trending page and how they got there.
The ones who care are the content creators who do not wish to put money in. Can you tell me, can anyone tell me who was on Youtube in 1997?
YouTube launched in 2005, right?
Indeed, long term platform investors don’t care about trending. Because most likely they will even invest in another gateway to the Steem blockchain.
They will do their due diligence to how the pool is distributed tho.
If they discover that every day for pay bot operators have more SP, and thus distribute more of the rewards pool, they will consider this platform as a not viable option because the rewards mechanics are siphoned, and dominated, by the bots.
That’s what they care about.
As you wrote recently, it’s going to become always more difficult to earn on Steem. Even more so if bid bots operate at always larger stakes.
As you wrote recently, it’s going to become always more difficult to earn on Steem. Even more so if bid bots operate at always larger stakes.
Which gives investors reasons to put money in.
Not if the distribution is b0rked by P2W.
I know it’s difficult to accept that but that’s the fact.
Last we need is people coming for quick daily returns. That doesn’t build better platforms.
This isn’t about Steemit. This is about a whole system, a platform. The Web3.0, the Internet of Infrastructure.
Verticals like Utopian and SteemHunt. Parley. Whatapp (Quora alternative on Steem). SteemMakers.
And all share that same limited pool.
Look at Parley.io and see what’s wrong with Steem right right now. Think that’s what will create a Reddit alternative?
Yet that’s what Steem is about. A whole new ecosphere.
With an already massively flawed distribution, a pay to win game which becomes worse every day.
If nobody can earn anymore without paying for it, critical mass won’t be achieved and there will be no hockeystick growth curve.
That’s not interesting for investors in new platforms. That’s good for subscription model SaaS platforms.
Not for content creation platforms which rely on “come for the rewards, stay for the community”. Then an elite membership club makes more sense. If you don’t care about also offering the large masses to earn a living. About creating vertical social mobility.
About rewarding people for the quality of their contributions.
I don't share your views... We shall see. The internet and social media have never been about quality content. It is about networking.
Investors already know life is not fair. They learned that and then they learned to capitalize on it.
I am fine if we disagree on the vision. That is what makes Steem interesting to me.
It seems everyone who is upset with the bidbots is only flagging votes over $50. Just look on steembottracker at the plethora of bitbots. And there are a ton of them that are $1-$5 and have very low buy in. To buy a big vote you have to have a big chunk of SBD. Thats not easy to attain. Either you have reaped reward from a quality post or bought in with your own cash. I cant begrudge someone spending their $$$ the way they see fit.
I also think the market will self correct with small bidbots and large bidbots. If you have a problem with someone buying a vote for 50SBD you should also have a problem with someone buying a vote for .1SBD Theres no such thing as a little bit of rape.