This is a way to double dip, now @bellyrub is selling votes via bidding windows, self-voting, and selling them on Minnowbooster for a triple dip combo.
Triple what?
To be honest I'm dizzy after reading your article. It's hard to see some light at the end of the thicket. Even though from my understanding it's been mainly a pure rip-off, being especially the vote buyers the ones who are at a clear disadvantage. Just considering one of the examples you copied here: account like @anotherpoet are mathematically losing money.
It's not profitable!
You can't pretend to promote smaller accounts if you're actually trying to exploit them no matter what.
This is completely 100% against the philosophy of steemit.
Thanks for the research!
triple dipping.
You have Steem Power that is limited voting power. That voting power was promised to users who used @bellyrub by sending 0.500 SBD+ with a post in the memo. It is expecting that voting power will be used for people who bid for a vote.
Bellyrub has been self-voting his two accounts, which means the bidding windows are longer for the same amount of voting power. So typically people get half of what they paid for or less.
Then votes are also being sold to Minnowbooster for $40-50+ depleting, even more, voting power, making the windows even longer.
Now after the post, he was selling votes privately (which has been done in the past).
All these activities take away the voting power that people pay for with their bids. When this happens, a commodity is sold under false pretense.
Thanks for taking the time to explain everything in detail.
Seems to be a real mess!
I've got some questions for you and your business if you don't mind:
Do you believe that vote buying makes a real difference for someone who doesn't have a considerable amout of SBD? I mean there are some they spent their whole wallets in upvotes in order to get a trending position (probably even losing money on the way). Obviously, these people get something in return: visibility / attention. However that doesn't happen to people who are only able to pay small amounts - and these are actually the ones that have difficulties in getting notices.
Also it's only a straw fire. Nobody will remember somebody that eventually made it to the top 10 once in a lifetime. People remember characters and their stories, they remember people that make a difference.
Just look at the reports from Steemfest. That is real networking and promotion for the platform that generates long term growth. Which part in vote trading generates long term growth?
I understand the idea to feed an obviously exising demand for attention. But from the overall perspective, how can services like @buildawhale (just to mention one and since you're close to it) be able to contribute to this platform in the long term? I don't see it. Once people run out of SBD, they don't get any more visibility, lose their interest and their blogs become some of these dead accounts, and we're having quite a lot of these already. How are you able to prevent that? Isn't user retention the most important task we're currently having?
Also: which plans do you have for your return? Right now you're not powering down the account, but doing transfers to your own one (@themarkymark). Is the intention of @buildawhale to somehow re-invest in this platform?
These are many questions and maybe you're not wanting to ask them all. I'd be happiest if you only answered the ones regarding user retention and long term growth :-)
Have a good Monday!