I gotta tell you. I got a few upset DMs in Discord and on the post I created on @minnowsupport about having created a public bid bot for the Minnow Support Project. But I want you to know. We're gonna be ok! Steem is ok. MSP is ok. The blockchain isn't dying. Chicken little isn't even awake. Bid bots aren't the end of the world. They're just a part of HF19.
Wtf is a HF19?
Ok, well, because we're growing and seem to have some turn over on who is active many of you may not have any idea what that means. Like the dish washer in your house you don't know how it works, but it works, so you don't care. Same with Steem, but here's the deal. Software iterations on Steem are tracked by a thing called hardforks. You're used to Windows 7 and 8. And know they are different versions. Here we talk about hardfork 18, 19, and the next one will be 20, which is called "velocity."
In this last HF we changed the way that rewards work. See this platform has a distribution that's pretty scewed. 93% of the steem is in the hands of 1% of the accounts and that's before we take into account @steemit. So, in the old method of voting the effect was exponential because the math was a combination of the number of people voting on something and SP^2 to determine rewards. that SP^2 factor made it so that the problem was exponentially greater. Minnow votes were practically dust. I remember it being a huge day when I got up to a 2 cent vote! So, they changed it from SP^2 to the math just using straight SP. That's the change from exponential to linear rewards.
Thing called reward shares, which is proportional to SP, used to be R^2 now it's just R.
So, now what happens is that it doesn't matter who else votes on your post. You don't get a squared curation effect. You get a linear one. Minnows got a boost to the post rewards they could deliver (a tiny fraction squared is still tiny), whales got a hair cut, and posts no longer needed tons of people voting on them to get a strong reward.
the good
@minnowsupport couldn't help over 1000 minnows a day get started on the platform without the change. The fact that the bot awards any post rewards at all to a minnow is specifically because of linear rewards.
@utopian-io wouldn't exist either. Because the votes wouldn't be worth $250 unless everyone else piled on too. Possible they could get more... but in it's current iteration it can't work.
the bad
Here are some of the concerns:
only shitposters use them
they kill the value of steem
bid bots rape the pool
So, let's talk about the first one. Shitposters only club... I think there is a stigma that if you use a bidbot you're a scammer, but I think this needs to change. I don't know how to get rid of bidbots without hurting minnow support or utopian-io. So, I'm gonna pause for a second and say what if there wasn't a stigma against using them on good posts? If we collectively agree it's ok to use on good posts and we start rewarding high quality content with upvotes is that ok? you run the risk of getting your value pummeled by whales if your reward/views ratio gets too high.
But just think about this. If it's ok to use them on good posts what could you do then? I'm going to put a few bidbots on this post. It's going to be ok. If you do it too it's going to be ok. Promote good content with bots, because if you don't someone else will use them to promote shit content.
bidbots kill the value of steem
Steem is sitting around 90-$1. When I started on this platform steem was usually at 20 cents. We've had a 5x improvement in a year. When I hear people say steem is dead, or fuck this platform or bots have killed it I think they're nuts. Our non-fiat SBD which stands for Steem backed Dollar, which literally means you can turn it into Steem is now getting pumped in part it seems because it's being used by traders as a safe store of value. Eventually people will start using this to trade off of because it takes 3 seconds to move money instead of minutes and there isn't a cost to move it.
So, look, price is way up. Maybe not in the 20 days you have been here, but in the year and a half I have been I'm pretty happy with a 5x return on my starting funds. It'll get better too when velocity and SMTs come out. STeem is gonna tokenize the internet. And you're an early adopter. I just don't agree that bidbots have killed the price of steem.
If anything they incentive holding it. Cause now instead of a shitty return you can make a bid bot and make money running a voting script. That's not a bad way to grow your funds (which is the main reason I'm running a public bot).
Bots rape the pool
This is the short hand, but I think the honest answer is "shitposters who receive bot upvotes are raping the pool." I don't think it's the end of the world that a good post gets an addtional 10-20 bucks if it's good content, if it brings people here, if it help folks understand the platform, or a myriad of other good reasons.
yes, some asshole posts a link and upvotes that spam it's bad, but if they do it enough they'll start getting flagged. So, I'm not sure that's the end of the world either. Flag shitposts with bot votes. Be the current solution to this. Or maybe just ask them to stop shit posting politely and explain the risk to them and the cost to the platform.
My main points
Steem isn't dying.
It's ok to use bid bots on good posts.
it's ok to flag or discourage shit posting.
You should try a bidbot if you haven't already. Put it on your post, make a smart bid by checking http://www.steembottracker.com before you bid, and make a little extra money on your hard work. If you stop judging yourself and others for using this service and allow yourself to benefit and have fun with it (put it on other people) then you're gonna have a good day.
Become and investor in one
If you'd like to become an investor in a bid bot and reap the same benefit as the whales taht use them try this public bidbot: https://steemit.com/bidbot/@minnowsupport/a-bidbot-for-the-people-introducing-msp-bidbot. Low amounts of steem get rewarded.
mspsteem.com
This post was authored on mspsteem.com. It's a clone of steemit.com, but it has a 5% beneficiary to @minnowsupport and is managed by @netuoso.
@aggroed - we agree with your points but you haven't mentioned us - smartsteem - the hottest and fairest voting bot on steem.
https://steemit.com/steem/@smartsteem/smartsteem
(self voted for publicity)
:(
That self upvote on muh wall for a promotion. You didn't even upvote muh post to sell yours...
We have to be careful about the voting power used, but you're right. Fixed that!
Good post. You make some great points. I guess you can always flag bot shit posts and it will eventually work itself out. You are right though, it is still the early phases. Still have some growing pains, but I think it will trend in the right direction.
Hi @aggroed,
Very nice post and I agree with you on all.
especially this part
I have been using http://www.steembottracker.com for a while to try and make a smart bid. Considering that I barely have 2-5 SBD collected with hard work from several of my posts, I want to make the most out of it and give more publicity to my posts.
The problem is that
Most people are greedy and not smart. So instead of checking the reward pool and deciding to let people betting in that time slot get something out of it, they just bid with higher amounts. They want to hog all the bidbot rewards to themselves and they end up losing and letting others lose.
As if waiting for the next bidding cycle is going to kill them or something
Most people with shit posts have lots of SBD (since they know how to exploit the system without feeling bad), so they end up ruining the bid bot for everyone.
My 2 cents: I humbly suggest that the owners of the bid-bot track those who uses the bot and discern whether they are shitposters or goodposters. Then they can prohibit the voting on the shit posts and just return the money, or not so these shit posters will learn a lesson.
I think the bidbots have lots of data that can be used for that already.
As for flagging, it is hard to stalk and find those shitposters all day long, so they will learn to avoid flaggers somehow. Hence, I don't see that as a good solution, however, it doesn't hurt to be vigilant of course.
Hope the bid-bot developers will look into this and implement it (if they are caring about steemit and not only about making money, no matter how)
Best,
Dr. TLK :)
In my short amount of experience here on steemit, 'shit-posters' always have a very short life span.
"Or maybe just ask them to stop shit posting politely and explain the risk to them and the cost to the platform." I like this approach.
I try to promote some sanity.
I upvoted your comment / support @gringalicious and agree with what you say,
you are one of the better posters in here. ❤️
You're too sweet. Thanks so much for the kind words!
Hey @gringalicious thats a great comments i am really proud of you.
As other types of users come in to the platform like photographers...do you consider 1-5 good photos to be a shit post? Short content to medium content posts will be part of the steemit community in the future and this will help steemit grown to mainstream.
What do you guys think? @aggroed @gringalicious.
thank you for explaining this. i think there is a lot of concern about bots because many people disagree. I've had well established people on steemit tell me they are powering down because of bots and scamming, and i'm not sure who to believe anymore.
some could be truth, but there could also be those wanting to protect their investment, or reactions out of fear. not everyone agrees on the right way, but perhaps the scary part is we don't know the facts percentage wise.
if seventy percent believe bots are bad, that is an uphill battle. if only 20%, this is workable. fear of the unknown is a challenge. wondering if no matter what i do, a few whales are consistently dumping steem to make a quick profit and thus devaluing it; this concerns me.
how do we know steem isnt dying? while numbers in PAL are up, each day i see PAL as quieter as far as chat and continuing users investing in steem. one of the downsides of a western education is it has trained me to look for facts. I could and do trust you, but what do we really know about activity in the last three months? perhaps an article for paulag would do better for reassuring.
the most important part for me is - why aren't people voting more? why aren't we stressing not only curation but better ways to accomplish it? and why are people stuck on curating the same thing for a profit instead of curating the people who really need help because their posts arent up to speed? not shit posters, but people who just dont have the skills or resources to post as well as the college grad who earns $50 for a post they spent two hours on?
right now i'm a curator and i have no flipping idea if i am doing it to the best of my ability. i've asked people and gotten some hints, but the reality is I often am put in the position of curating the same people over and over because it seems that theres just not enough new posts coming out. i don't know if this is true, it's just my feeling on it. we need a way to measure the market, imho, to see how many creators there are, how many curators, how many developers. because if we arent maintaining a good balance, we are perpetuating a myth of steemit as a viable platform.
I'm taking this from @penguin pablo. We're at a rough average and sticking to it. We had a slow down when steemit broke. Now we seem to be back to growing, but I think the holidays are slowing this down some. real trick will be what happens next week.
More important will be what happens when steem starts to tokenize the entire internet.
thanks for this! good to know someone is out there keepin track :)
i am following him now, he has some really good information about the daily output of the platform, for anyone else interested.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@penguinpablo/daily-steem-stats-report-saturday-november-25-2017
Wonderful Post! My opinion is that going into the future we must never really complain about bots. Bots are here to stay, even movies from before the creators of the block-chain were born, fortold that in the future we shall be coexisting with robots.
Finally, some sense to the subject.
This and @themarkymark's (buildawhale owner) post this morning are the posts to read on the subject.
To the point where I'm now afraid to use them and feel I've already gained 'enemies'
RS - 3rd one of yours in a week as it happens!
do what works for you..there will always be Haters.
Wait to use them and see how well you do without them and on some posts don't use them, see if those haters show up to support you.
This is all a test, new territory, enjoy being here. 👍
Yes I've been trying different approaches, thanks :)
Posting for utopian-io means their bot will come visit, and it prefers it if other bots aren't present!
lol.. bot envy, understandable though
all about the bots :D
I've sent 100's of bots to other users posts over the past 6 months, especially @aggroed's @lovejuice.
I agree completely with you. I saw so many minnows come and go over the last year and a half because they put in the effort and got little to no recognition or reward. With communities like @minnowsupport and @qurator minnows can finally get a little recognition for their work. Bid-bots just help incentivize minnows to put in the effort.
As for bid-bots raping the reward pool, sure it happens some, but there are so many people trying to game the system now in so many ways that the amount of reward raping going on by most bid-bots is pretty small compared to the benefits they offer to the quality posters.
Very good points and yes I use to fight myself vs bots and you know what totally not worth it. If you can't beat them join them I say lol
Great post @aggroed. Drives me nuts seeing the shit posts all over the place. I've used a bid bot a couple of times on posts that I put a lot of heart into. I don't use them all the time but occasionally yes. I have also started to flag said shit posts. Thanks for trying help to clear the air and some of the stigma around proper use of bidbots.
I don't really take issue with bots, and I never have, even when they were beginning to blossom into their own ecosystem. They're a service just like any other; the right or wrong comes from how they're used. Shitposters tend not to make it too far unless they've already got extensive backing, so bots I don't create much of an issue in that regard.
Let's take the long view - STEEMit is for the long gamers.
To forecast the future of Steemit on a generally volatile market is not the way I look at it.
STEEM will eventually hit USD10.00 and higher.
I am a firm believer in the power of the alternative economic platform - it is what we make of it. Starting to trade goods and services lessens the impact the fiat fraud has on us as individuals.
Add value - reap rewards - that's the way I see Steemit and Crypto Growth potential.
"Whales got a hair cut"
Their direct influence dropped, and with it went the value of Steem.
This does not imply that I am convinced that linear rewards are bad, because there were and are whale, orca and dolphin abusers too.
Also true, is that fewer accounts are easier to monitor.
So what did the whales do after their "hair cut" and the decline in Steem value?
They sell votes.
Now they take a guaranteed cut from minnows' and plankton's bigger than before relative cut, so only the method of whale control changed.
Thinking about the ways most bot owners carry themselves, they steal money from the sub-dolphins, so I guess this along with discouraging accounts multitude convince me that I may be against linear rewards after all, not that I became completely convinced.
1.14% @pushup from @stimialiti
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Yup I totally agree with you @aggroed especially if you want to reward a random great post that you thought undervalued and you dont have enough sp to reward his/her hardwork then you can rely on a bid bot. :)
so interessing post , minnowsupport is an awesome project for minnow
i think we need more marketig in steemit to get more investors
thank you for sharing
Totally agree
Thank for great post @
"So, look, price is way up. Maybe not in the 20 days you have been here, but in the year and a half I have been I'm pretty happy with a 5x return on my starting funds." Probably my favorite line of your post. I'm glad to hear chicken little isn't even awake.
you think very good. that is a very good idea in my opinion. and I am ready to do anything for our common good and I think while reading and understanding of the contents of your post. You give very accurate news and that is to grow small fish
If there is a bot that can screen out shit posts, that would solve so much problems. Do you think we will ever see this day?
idk, maybe you make it so it can't upvote a flagged post?
Not all flags are good measures of the quality of a post.
agree. Please check my comment here or in my post. Maybe you will like my 2 cents
I took the advice from your last post about this, but I ended up spending 15 sbd for a 10 cent vote with a bot that has almost 2 million sp. I realize why, and it's my fault, but the only person who really wins with bidbots are the owners.
Not true. You just have to time them like you do any other investment. There are plenty of votes where they payout an assload and examples where they don't.
I have to see that yet and I am monitoring steemitbottracker as much as I possibly can. It is really impossible to get these times unless you are lucky, you monitor bids almost all day long or you have data from the blockchain on the best times for profitable bidding.
If you have such data, I would love to have it please. LOL
Thanks :)
I have yet to see that, too, except in some very, very rare cases cited in little more than rumors from the bot-owners / developers themselves. You and I are in total agreement that bid-bots are a waste of time and certainly a waste of money for the "user." One bad experience was all it took ... and my husband and I now totally avoid them. You not only have to do a ton of "calculations" to time your bid "correctly" -- you have to be very, very lucky to boot. It's worse than the tables in Vegas where they at least try to pay out enough to keep people encouraged. Here, they don't even put in that effort. Bid-bots are a terrific boon to the owners and developers. They are suckers' game for anyone else.
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Again, I know why it happened, I'm just salty. I knew better and still did it. It's completely my fault.
It was a $3.83 vote for a $2 bid. The problem was you bid a second time for $15 which there is no way we can vote a second time.
Bots are not cash registers, nowhere in the world can you expect to send $10 to someone and get $20 back. That being said, that's how @buildawhale has been functioning for the last few days, most users are seeing near 200% return on investment or more.
I am not winning anything, all the bids are used to pay rent. I struggle just to break even each week. If you don't believe me, have a look. It's all immutable and public.
I admit my mistake. I know how to make sure I never make that mistake again.
Would expect nothing less.
https://steemit.com/@ghasemkiani/transfers
This guy is keeping you afloat.
Make your own assessment of his content.
nice man
Another positive post.. keep them coming @aggroed .. resteemed.
I use bots when I feel like it. It is fun to wait and see how well the post does before doing so. To see how much the post attracts for an unknown like myself.
Running tests on this system helps me know that if I go ahead and use one at times it attracts attention that maybe I would not get all because of a few more cents.
I limit to 1 dollar a lot for me and after all is said and done and the post is curated .. well usually I walk away with an additional 20 cents.
Everything in here is a test. So runs tests if you use them. (not that anyone is looking for my advise lol)
As far as crummy posts..they will not really gain anything and over time will not be able to afford the bot.
Maybe they would have to invest in Steem to continue .. not sure what is to come just glad to be a part of testing it.
Oh I forgot to say... Love your meme ..great job!
I just disagree. If no one read the post, it should not be upvoted. An upvote is the signal that the content was curated and found to be quality. Bots can't read and can't discern quality, they have no business voting IMO.
@fishyculture bots are used by a multitude of people every day in Steemit for voting. I am referring to the upvote bots that are not paid for by the poster.
They are even available to minnows like me who are not techy. I use one. The person voting usually does not see the post behorehand.. so in essence, there is no curation there.
Then most everyone upvotes their own posts, including Whales, dolphins, and minnows. Start looking on their votes.. the ones with more funds get big upvotes from their friends and their selves. Many of these folks use bots for this.
I know how the bots are used, I used them at first myself. Upvotes without curation will destroy this platform, I suspect. There is no quality control. That said, I know there are whales who love their bots and would happily reduce me to rubble for talking smack about them so I am done with the topic. Have a lovely day!
the ones opposed could do me in lol have a lovely day
An excellent post to help explain this bot war that is entangled into the system. Having read @acidyo post and followed straight on this post to seek out more on how this all works.
Steemit needs a good shake up and chasing around bots I gave up after trying a few and then joining communities to further establish what is expected here.
Confusing to say the least to non-coders; 'check out value then post', why?
Services offered at a low amount of SBD straight 0.500 or 0.005 whatever the rate and you have a good post, by all means use it.
I would prefer to stay with people I have come to know, like and trust and try to keep Steemit with quality post, not more equals greater payouts (using bots) to quality is where Steemit drives folks to actually enjoy good photography, video or reading.
How can we trust people to accurately evaluate the quality of their own posts?
I'd recommend a twist on what you are saying... rather than coming to the conclusion that "it's ok to vote yourself up if its a good post, perhaps it would be better to think like "it's ok to use bid bots to UPVOTE OTHER PEOPLE."
Supporting others is the healthier way to do steem anyway. The paradox of steem is that by working hard to help others, you tend to get more for yourself...
But any philosophy that encourages new users to buy votes for themselves, just pushes steem closer to a "pay-to-win" economy, prices out the most marginalized people, and tends to encourage crappy mass-produced content over the good stuff.
This is an excellent suggestion for people with funds to do.
Some have zero funds when they upvote others or their own posts. Mine is pennies but I am working on it.
I do use tip u so I can pay more to others without having to give them a few cents.
So if a little guy earns a dollar it is asking a lot to have them upvote someone else by paying a bid bot.
They are best to give the fellow Steemian's post link to a curator who can bring more to the table.
Also without using bid bots I believe it is ok to upvote my own post. Some other minnows, dolphins, and whales do it. Taking a few pennies out of the pool to upvote my post is alright in my eyes...
Ya I agree with you, nobody should feel obligated to pay for bots to vote other peoples' posts. It's just an idea for how to use them responsibly if a steemian has the strong urge to do so
Lol good answer... it all boils down to money if you look at the majority of people and what they think. The slight tear is some minnows are afraid to use them due to pressure from folks with clout like yourself. They fear survival in the tank will not happen if they think outside the box of what is currently a controversy.
I say let it run its course..it will die out if or when not needed. The world operates that way but to use fear to make decisions creates confusion in the system.
I just wish I knew how to maximize my profits with bots, ugh oh well.
@aggroed you just saved me a few hours! I've wanted to write a post about this very thing but you came along and did it much better than I ever could have - and you have a much larger audience to boot!
Thanks for promoting the bot tracker as well! On a related note I recently read the post from @acidyo about his conversation with you on this topic and it seems like he's come around to see that bid bots are really not all that bad.
Very impressive work! One question (if you read this) - are you planning to combine msp-bidbot and lovejuice, or keep them separate?
Keep them separate. Lovejuice will continue to use income to pay minnows who can't make 5 sbd on teh platform. msp-bidbot will work to allow minnows a healthy return even on small investments.
MI friends it's a real great post and very helpful to understand about all the bots and their function
Sort of happy to see this post @aggroed, so thanks.
I do agree with the sentiment "what if using a bidbot wasn't stigmatized?" I think that might go some way towards addressing people's concerns.
The other thing that comes to mind is that this is (or is TRYING to be) a "social" site. Which suggests interaction, connecting with other people's content. Which leads me to... people might be less anti-bidbot if more people used them to reward others, rather than just "take for themselves." The whole idea of "social" suggests (at least to me) that something is about *community," but currently bidbots are only used in a "it's all for ME" context. What if people were more encouraged to use bidbots as a tool to reward OTHERS who create excellent content, not just themselves?
It could even be taken further... I don't know if this could be coded into the way the bots work... to where if someone sends a bot 1 SBD for their OWN benefit the upvote is worth "X" amount, but if they send it to benefit someone else, the vote is worth "2X." And yes, people "could just create multiple accounts," but it still might make a dent.
I guess my point is that excess use of bidbots seems to de-emphasize content and makes everyone just worry about ROI.
that's harder since i'll just send money to an alt and use that to upvote me. There are work arounds to that.
So i think what you are saying is that if we just focus on chicken nuggets, we are going to be OK.
I like it...
Cheezit nuggets!
yes Saria... how insolent of my part to forget about the cheezit flavored nuggets... Im sorry Aggy... don't worry us your minions will preach the Cheezit nugs hard for you and bring forth the mission of PAL!!!!
shs...
Thanks for this opinion, totally agree - think it is important to get rid of the all bid bots and the suers are evil thinking indeed. Maybe the next HF will bring other news where we have other issues.
I'm going to have to disagree with you. I would rather have good posts earn next to nothing, than to have garbage have the ability to pollute an already poorly filtered ecosystem. Without vote buying, the shitposters would eventually die out because they can't make money. But now they can leapfrog worthy content that doesn't play the game. Why should anyone have to waste flags on downvoting on that garbage content to restore the balance? People naturally don't like flagging.
Steem's value depends on two things: The growth of the platform and the use of the currency after its been earned or bought.
The growth of this platform is comparably slow. There are lots of reasons for this, including a steep learning curve. Now imagine your ordinary social media user and them being swamped by bots whose sole purpose is to generate income. Nobody wants that. Then they learn they need to pay to garner attention? The content is no longer the source of value, but rather buying someone's vote is. That's stupid.
The only argument for bidbots is giving quality posters fair value for their votes via visibility. But how does this contribute to the value of post-distributed Steem? Your purchasing a claim to a token that has very little use case outside of producing more of the token. Sure, you be able to make more Steem, but why should the price of Steem be higher? You are distributing more rewards to spammers who are the most likely to cash out. Reducing demand and ultimately the price.
Bidding bots don't increase the value of post, they increase token rewards. But those tokens are useless if everyone just sells them out for Bitcoin. Sure, you get influence holding the tokens, but who cares about influence when you can buy votes?
New users aren't going to buy into such a convoluted system where the focus is on fucking the rewards pool rather than making content. Vote Buying encourages such behavior. It's easy to see why so many people stop using the service. And when people stop playing the game your token is naturally going to lose its value in price.
But its okay, these bots were made for a noble cause. Instead of actually taking the time to curate and read the damn posts and spend time sorting through the trash, we going to only vote on those that pay us for our "service" to the community (even if it is that same trash). Social Media was designed for people to connect with each other, not to view as potential customers. And now more than ever, searching the trending page, it seems like its full of advertisements for services more than anything. And I hate ads.
If everyone uses voting bots, is Steem a better place than if no one uses them? Because if not, there's no reason to use them at all.
you are right about Steem's value depends on two things, but things are different :)
Thats 2 factors are main.
Those things matter for the current price value of Steem, I was talking about the intrinsic long-term "value." You are right on volume and the lack of marketing being the reason that Steem's speculative value isn't raising like other cryptocurrencies.
kryptonia
Thanks for this post. I think using bots on good posts is OK. Bad posts are still bad. Good posts are still good.
I think people should reward comments more than they do.
I think the golden rule here is to engage in communication and interact with each other, rewarding those with real content and communication.
Upvoted & Resteemed.
here is simple math of bid bots: now if we calculate all bots its around 600$ per hour or ~$15k per day, and reward pool is much more than that so its tiny part of reward pool and around 80% of bidbots users post legit content so abusers get around 2k$ per day for may be ~ 300 users. But if we see circle jerks and other problems with rip off reward pool there is like x100 more amount , so problem is not with bots but with other things. For bots i think we need soemthing like botscleaner account who will have delegated power and clean all shit like stolen videos,memes without anything and then all will be cool. Anyway we need to look more global into problems and not on tiny things.