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That was hilarious. So...is it ok to use bid bots..or no...LOL

Is it okay to run bid bot... or not?

Exactly lol, let's get the discussion rolling. What does everyone think?

personally i don't like or use bid bots. it's like walking into a pub of people you don't know and buying everyone a drink so that they like you. just my 2 cents.

It's more like paying the landlord for the best table and a loudhailer so everyone has to listen to what you say. The rest of the pub don't really benefit.

I still can't believe how Steemit Inc totally screwed up when it comes to post promotion - Now we have Trending list that is full of posts with bought votes and only select few benefit from it while the normal users get the short end.

Every third spot should had been preserved for promoted posts on the trending list (Tweakable but probably better than now) with clear indication of promoted post, the funds used to promote then would have been burned and this would had benefitted everyone in the Steem ecosystem.

Has anyone done any research on how many of the top 20 trending posts has been bought votes each day? Would be interesting to see the data

There is 1 post (@kingscrown) in the top 20 that has not had bought votes added.

So trending is just full of bought ads now if we're being honest. Thanks for info.

It's a circle jerk post instead. Arguably worse IMO

And half the other posts are telling us that everything is fine, it's not so bad.

My opinion on this is still swaying from side to side, I guess it will be fine as long as people develop alternative algorithms to view the content on the blockchain.

But I still would prefer to have this same system embedded into the blockchain or steemit.com in which funds used to promote would be burned, sharing the profit between everyone.

I'd also prefer the Trending contain something else than just "ads". This current change has very likely impacted efforts towards finding quality content a lot. We would do a lot better, if we aim towards finding quality content and rewarding it rather than encouraging and forcing everyone to buy their way into the spotlight.

At least that's how I feel on this issue today, might be different tomorrow. But we should aim for something better.

They can change the algorithm for trending at any time. I don't think they anticipated the vote selling business on this scale. I think various people are analysing the posts. There's this alternative trending page

They don't even need to change trending. Steemit Inc easily have the stake to police this. They choose not to.

Yes, me neither but it's been going on for a while now. Might as well adjust and correct the system. I did see @noisy developing something to battle this as well if I saw correct. It gives me hope for Steem that there's people working on fixing this. I'm sure we all have our own visions on how the system should work and as your link shows, we can all try them out also which is great.

Interesting algorithm on that site, never thought of valuing the posts by the weight of their resteemers.

Heck, it's like paying one of the pub's lenders, even the landlord isn't seeing much from it.

that's another interesting way to look at it i guess ;)

It's the vote sellers who really win from this game, but I know some pay out some of the profit to those who delegate to them. People are trying different business models on this platform.

open market theory i guess. at least, that's how we describe it.

That's a great analogy.

Yes me i am the same. By the way i even dont have money to pay them😂 also same with the vote for vote posts. And the worst when they just copy paste something. I just wrote a post about it. Crazy😂

Presently until whales and dolphins starts curating new babies with quality post the only way to survive is to use the bid bots.

I write motivational /inspirational post yet I have no audience and there are those who doesn't write up to me and they have enough attention.

So tell me if I have enough money why wouldn't I use bid bots?
Or what's your say? Let's keep it rolling

 6 years ago  Reveal Comment

In my opinion, the Bots have taken the enjoyment out of Steemit. I wanted to Post and share some activities I enjoy and build up a following and maybe make a little money. It seems like nobody up votes and more and almost every time I use a Bot I lose a little bit of money.
I do not understand how a system, Bots, can survive by taking in more money than they pay out

Unless you are already famous, or ultra patient to build up a following... I'm not quite sure how else to go about it...

What's worse IMO is that these bid bots seem to be taking most of the curation rewards as well...

Maybe the bid bots are here to stay
It seems like a game everyone wants to play.

Great work indeed :D

Thanks! I imagine it's just another Steemit phase... but who knows lol

You had me at bots.

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HAHAHAH, funny you used bid bots on this to make a point. . .. ;).. . .. oh WAIT. .. .

Yeah lol, we thought that would be funny. Also, it's been very interesting going through the experience of learning about them over the last couple days... for instance, I did not realize how much they were being used.

yeah massively. see it's a tough one really because i can understanding someone wanting to get the message out and being PROUD of something but when it's just because you want to acquire more wealth to take out of the eco system then the argument kinda falls flat for me.

personally you guys are worth GOLD then just 1's and 0's -- but i guess that's just another rare mined resource too :)

We've all come across content we've probably thought deserved way more rewards than it got or, perhaps should have even been trending and of course it wasn't. And then on the other hand, we've all also seen total shit hit the top of the T-PG.

It is good to know that if you strongly believe in apiece of content you've created... there is at least 1 option to help it get noticed... Unfortunately you need to spend several hundred $ to promote it using bid-bots.

and that's the quandary, the belief is in the eye of the beholder, especially when it comes to promotion.

Hehe 😎

I personally don't hate bid bots.
It all depends on how you use it, its only bad when its abused. I see it as a way of promoting your content( good and creative content) . When you are on board no one knows and at times the babies usually have quality content. If you want to wait without using bid bot you might never be recognized.

The bottom line is this: If you have good contents and you have the money I advice you to use the bid bots.

NOTE: NOTHING THAT WILL NOT BE ABUSE IN THIS WORLD. MONEY SPEAKS THATS WHY MAJORITY ARE ABUSING BID BOTS

D is for Decentralized.
The platform will look exactly in a way YOU make it.
You said in the comment that's because of "whales simply upvoting themselves".
I'm not a whale, I don't even post much, and I've never used a bid bot... (and just recently I flagged few cases of excessive bid bot usage with my negligible SP) but the reality is not that simple as you are saying.
Look at your own voting example: ( 65.96 % self, 47 upvotes, 13 accounts, last 7d ) (source: steemworld.org). Saying that "others do that" is a really bad excuse. Especially that deeds on the blockchain stays forever.
And yes, you are right, there are no evil tools, it all depends on how you use them, that includes various paid voting services (actually calling it "bidbots" is very unprecise, as that's just a subset)

I think that the best alternative for voting bots when it comes to content visibility is a cooperation of a professional and honest manual curators and high staked investors powered by some ways of automation like curation trails on steroids.
That, plus maybe changing author reward split from 75%/25% to something towards 60%/40% or even 50%/50% can in a long run make original, high quality contnet stand out from the crowd and improve the platform.
Low quality content on a trending page makes us look silly.
If we say to the world (through the trending page) that some garbage is worth 1000 STEEM on our platform, then how much they can value STEEM? What profit you will make earning 1000 STEEM if STEEM itself would be worthless?
Also @baah is making a fair point with highly undervalued PROMOTED feature, which needs some more love.

That, plus maybe changing author reward split from 75%/25% to something towards 60%/40% or even 50%/50% can in a long run make original, high quality contnet stand out from the crowd and improve the platform.

I think 50/50 split would be a great experiment, but this idea has been already discussed for some time and based on my observation, a majority of users like it (dunno if a majority of stake tho).

So I have a question - when should we expect this change? I assume it requires a hard fork (correct me if I'm wrong), so maybe HF20 would be a good fit?

Yes, it's not a new idea, however I'm not sure if that can get into HF20 (I would rather want to keep that separate from other changes), especially if that would mean delaying HF20 even more.

Would it really be that hard to have 50/50 split like you said and a SBD/SP payout option for curators that mirrored author rewards... would be cool to see that option.

Yeah, it's nice to know that if you believe you have good content, there is a way to get it seen. That was never the case before bid bots

Yes because there was enough content curators then.
Now we just have a bunch of whales simply upvoting themselves

You are damn right @orisfina I wish to be a whale someday curating other people. My vote is too small to do a damn thing :(

You are trying your best @tngflx . Imagine if everyone has the same mentality as you and all trying their possible best to curate. Steemit will be a much better place.
Nevertheless i wont give up, i will keep doing my best even though my SP is low. Just wish i could lease some SP because i have seen new babies we need to support

You aren't getting my point...
You are taking it personally.

We are only sharing our personal thoughts towards the issue, lets not be sentimental .
It hasn't gotten to that

Ok now you are getting what am driving at

I don't think there is anything wrong with self voting your content. Especially if you spent lot of time creating it and it's "good." I would have a problem with it, if for example you never voted on anyone else's content...At the point as you said "the line" has been crossed.

"If you have the money you can stay and do well here. If you are one of those people that tries to do it with just hard work and passion...good luck with that." says Steemit. We will burry you until you can pay.

I have to admit it is my least favorite aspect of Steemit. A high pay for play staked game.

I liked it when the social aspect had more of an effect instead of just throwing money at it.

I liked the content more when it was about quality instead of bought votes.

Personally, I think it effects how the platform is viewed from the outside. People coming in could be looking at work that got to the top on public opinion alone instead of a weighted wallet.

I try not to use the bots unless it is for another user or for a contest otherwise it would not be seen.

On another note where is my #freethenipple song😋😘

Yeah, I personally think we're just going through a "bit bot" phase. It's not my favourite Steemit phase but it is interesting. I really like the idea of moving toward account based voting... that might be the best solution.

It is kinda interesting watching different seasons of steemit evolve. One always has to be up with the times ha ha. One moment something can be good - but two months later and it is crippiling something we didn't expect. Steemit is a delicate beast at times, it never seems to know what it wants to do with itself.

Now you put me in a quandary. I love the song, oh those harmonies, but I don't generally support posts that trend on paid bots. I'd love to see the trending page with posts that the community actually liked. There are alternative trending pages.

But as it's you guys I'll give you a vote anyway. Maybe this song can trend and get people to think more about what they want this site to be.

Thanks @steevc! We definitely don't want to put our friends in a quandary. I also have a hard time justifying voting on bit bot posts lol.

I'm sailing the same boat as Steve but seeing as you guys are original content through and through, you can have a vote from me as well :D

I really feel the need to chime in on this.
I don't pretend for a second that the bidbots don't see a lot of abuse....but not being willing to support content because bots were used isn't really fair at all.
Clearly I have a biased opinion here, but I think there is a correct way to use the bots and I think I am an example of it.
However, your mentality backfires my approach.
I create original content, content that doesn't just cost me time to create....it costs me a good chunk financially to do so.
Through my show, I'm not just creating content either.
I'm onboarding new users from the locations I travel to, I'm helping strengthen communities in the regions I travel to by hosting meetups and I'm introducing the steemit community to the members they share this space with.
With my show, I've created a product, a product that has an overhead and due to that, a need to advertise said product.
However, unlike others, my goal is to use this marketing to grow an organic viewership that will in time replace the use of bots completely.
Can I grow this show 100% organically?
Of course I can, but what I can't do is sustain the ability to create the content.
Using the bots to advertise my material is helping fund the project plain and simple. If I didn't have this tool available to me, there's no way I could afford to do the work I'm doing.
By choosing to not support the content because it's used these marketing tools, simply prolongs how long I have to continue to use them.
If we really want to see great content make it's way to this platform, we need to provide sustainability for that content, but until that sustainability comes using these tools allows me the chance to keep doing what I'm doing and grow little by little.
Content should be judged on the content, not on how the creator managed to get the content to you.

It's not a black and white issue. I can see you are working hard on this. Do the 'bots' make you much profit? Might you actually make more by not using them if it got you more support from whales? So many questions. You have a good following and I would think many of them would be supporting you regardless of whether you are on the trending page. As it is that is not an interesting place for many of us due to all the low quality posts getting boosted.

Steemit was intended to reward good quality content through community moderation. Buying votes bypasses that. It may boost your reputation too, but that's not due to people liking what you do. It just feels wrong to me and I think it harms Steemit in general. I want this platform to succeed and so do many others. Others just treat it as a profit opportunity. I'm not accusing you of that, but the freedom we have here allows everyone to do what they want, with the proviso that others can exercise their voting power to pass judgement.

I wish you all the best with what you do. I may well vote up some of your posts and I wouldn't flag you as I have with some posts that didn't deserve massive rewards. Not that my vote makes much difference.

The bots don't really make me profit (not saying they never have).
They provide me visibility that is allowing a slow but steady organic growth.
If I had whale support...I wouldn't even use the bots.
And...your support and respect has priceless value to me...it makes a huge difference, regardless of the monetary value of that support @steevc

Yea, that was kind of the point with this one. I only recently discovered that bid-bots was the primary factor in what was hitting the trending pg, and also... more interesting, that many of the bigger players i followed and enjoyed content from where also using them.

Great song! I hate that bid bots have become a thing on Steem but as long as they exist, I'd like to see people using them to push good content to the top. That's why we've started using them - because the trending page is filled with garbage most of the time and I'd rather see our videos above that junk. I think it gives a better view of Steem to the outsider when they first come to the trending page.

Yeah, that’s basically how I feel too. I think it’s probably just anothet Steemit phase. And there are totally pro and cons. Like you guys... we will try to use them only in the best possible way 😎

I think bid bots is just for the minnows that need exposure for them to cope up the fast pace of the steaming steem. But many of our fellow steemians including those huge guys are using also bid bots. We just need guidelines and policy on this matter to control the use of bots.

Okay, so I'm "old school." I never vote for myself because, well, it just doesn't seem quite proper... It's sorta like a form of masturbation, which is fine insofar as far as masturbation is concerned, it's cool and all, but not so far as stroking one's content is concerned. Ha-hahaa... You guys rock, man... at the end of the day, it's all about telling the truth as we see it - and I love the way you two go about revealing relevant questions that many of us need to ask ourselves. With that, I'll leave you guy's with this...

The whole world is shaking now, I can feel it. Oh, and don't let the truth bite you in the ass! lol... :-) You guys rock! :-)

Thanks man! So far are asses are fine... but yeah we like to stick them out from time to time.

The truth is that sometimes you just can't help it. When you keep creating quality posts that you think may trend and no one is giving a f*ck about your so called quality post, you just have to do what they others are doing. But I don't think such practice will benefit the community in the long run

Ya totally!

Another timeless classic from the @steembirds ! SteemBirds Rock!

Thanks man! We keep trying 😎

Let the free market decide. I use bid bots sometimes! Other times I don't. People on Youtube pay to promote their videos all the time!

I say it’s totally ok.

I occasionally self vote and that’s my choice as to how I use my upvote. I more that support minnows here, go on my channel and see before you start making claims.

Most ppl do self vote... and there's nothing wrong with it IMO..Just make sure to use your vote to also curate content you think is worthy. BC that in itself will actually raise the value of Steem in the long run and thus make you more profit in the end.

That's never going to happen... There will always be some ppl who only ever self vote.. That's a small minority IMO>

Wahahaha!!! This is GOLD!!! This is bitcoin!!!

Haha, thanks man!

will steemit ever change this? I believe as it is now, it is not in the highest interest of Steemit itself. I believe the platform would do better to promote the "best" content. It would encourage the creators to just simply produce amazing content... That would be a place I'd love to hang out (even more)..
Any predictions?

I predict Steemit will let the experiment play out. Until something obviously better comes along... like account based voting with oracles

That's the only bidbotted-trending-entry that I liked so far.

Haha, we are humbled to hear that gtg 😎😎🤘

Love the song, kind of reminds me of the old ska music I used to listen to. Awesome :D

Bidbots are literally ruining STEEM

lol! you're fantastic

So I NEVER even check the trending page because I don't care which posts the bots like best... This is probably the first time I clicked it in several months and I am SO glad I did! Upvoted, resteemed, followed... and drowning in obscurity for not using the bots... lol!

Haha thx. I only recently started checking it out again too. I'm of a similar mind ~

Seriously though, we need a better and more ways to advertise on Steem through paying SBD

This will become a classic poem. :)

Thanks for sharing.

Aleatory comment: When you're poor and can't pay for a bidbot.

It's okay.

I'm fine.

Lol :) Great job, steembirds!
Well, here is the answer:
It's about use , not abuse ;)

Haha. You guys always make me laugh.
Are bid bots ok? Sure they are, are they good for the platform, well i think you know the answer to that question. haha.

Glad to hear it ;) and ya there seems to be a lot of opinions about it which is great.

to be fair bids bots are only way to reach TRENDING, unless you got over 100k SP

Hilarious! xD Anyone care to explain how bid bots work? Just started this week.

Never spent more than 30 SBD and only once I was on trending - there is a way. This will get there. Very catchy - me likey

There is a way.

  1. It depends on the niche
  2. The amount of money you have.
    Use roughly above 50SBD

It's not a bad thing - but there is also a level of irony regarding this specific post now being on trending...... Because of bid bots 🤣🤣🤣 - it would belong here regardless - would have liked to see it make it here void of bot usage - again the organic traffic alone should have been enough and then tomorrow or the next day they pump it with bots to maintain its position.

That's the reason why I said its just been abused this days.
When you have money abuse of some things is inevitable. That's life

There's no way the SteemBirds would have ever made the trending page if not for the bid-bots... Unfortunately, It really doesn't seem like it's just about consistently producing "good content" right now.

Hey thanks for replying - I hear you - but like I said I never use them to get on trending - only use them for those posts once I'm on trending already - will I use minimal amounts of money just to maintain its visibility. I am not a fan of dumping that much money into "promotion" - if I had it I would rather put it towards steempower.

Definitely.
I get your point.

Nice meeting you

can you please give me upvote for improving my post.. I write and research on cryptoo currency that's why I always try to post a unique article and I need your support because of newbie.. I always share your post and I love your works.. can you please share and vote me.. I will grateful to you
this is my article and I will vote and share your one
https://steemit.com/esteem/@steemvive/bitcoin-economics-technology-and-governance-c84ca00040a79

Epic my friends... resteem from me!! hahahah

What the heck did I just read? Can I have the last minute of my life back?

It took you a minute to read the lyrics...?! YIKES! You probably should have just watched the performance of the song instead j/k ;)

Unfortunately humans cannot go back in time... Sry to hear you didn't like our commentary on the state of bid-bots on Steemit :(

No..... But kind of. Right now I think boys are the ONLY way to get in trending. Doesn't have to be his way, but they have too much influence to be stopped. IMO, bots are positive, BUT, I would love to see separate trending pages for promoted and non-promotes content

Posted using Partiko Android

Never used them... I think it’s unfair to do so.☺️

Me I have no provlem with bid bots. It's ok for me if everyone have it as long as it add value to the community.

I think it is ok to use bids bot. It helps new steemians like me to grow. Help me. Huhuhu

I've had that same thought...ethically I think its fine if you say that you bought votes...

Hiring a bidbot to extort rewards from me by their advantage in the math shows a lack of class.
Thanks to your use of multiple bidbots my rewards were diminished against my will.
Thanks, alot.

If the community wanted you to have rewards they would have voted your content.
Instead of hiring a thug to get you some rewards by the force of the math, you couldve built a following by doing the work, eh?

Bid bots are for those who know that the idealist is dead.

Or want to see them dead,...

Thanks for your two cents! It's good to have both angles of arguments here!

I don't believe however that the bots have directly diminished your specific rewards in any way.... I don't see how that would be tbh.

If you look into bid-bots... most ppl don't actually directly profit from their votes, since you have to pay for them and do not get a guarantee on your investment. Also, subtract 25% for curation from the post payout lol. ooo Also it forces you to power up some for your initial investment because you ge paid out in SBD and SP right. So that's actually 1 good, all be it a small thing.

Soo... for the most part the bidder loses a portion of their investment but get's promotion in exchange which hopefully draws the organic community attention you mentioned:)

Typically you either break even, profit a couple bucks or, lose a couple bucks. At this point, it's become mostly a tool for promoting the posts you believe are "good content" (but as many steemians can probably empathize with) most of the time do not get seen by the larger community these days for various reasons.

The Bid Bot itself and the investors seem to make some $ tho, & some give portions of the profit to various curation or other initiatives as well ~

There's some inherent good and also some inherent bad in the bots from what i can see. I don't think it will last though. It suxs that in order to use them effectively you require some significant capital.
most new users won';t be able to use them in this way which is negative. But Bid-Bots probably won't last, not the way they are dominating Steemit currently.

If the community doesn't like the content being bumped up by bots, they will and do flag it. That's what it's there for right?! ;)

I don't believe however that the bots have directly diminished your specific rewards in any way.... I don't see how that would be tbh.

Then you dont understand the math.
Your mentors have left this part of your steem education out because they want you playing the game their way and not the way it actually is.
The same reason nobody mentioned the .02 rewards round down in the two years before it got made known publicly.
I had been told that the vests still credited, but that was inaccurate.
I need to go back and find who told me that misinformation, and call them on it.

The less sp actively voted raises the value of the remaining sp.
This is what the whale experiment was about, until stinc put the kibosh on it and gave us pay to play.
If only one vote is cast, it gives the entire pool.
If it has 10sp or 10m sp.
But, if one 10sp and one 10m sp vote gets cast the 10sp vote gets rounded down, 'Sorry Mr. Poor Person this game is for rich people, you should get a job, and put in some overtime!'

When @ned delegates 1m sp to his favorites the value they dole out comes from every user that receives a vote.
Which may be funny if you dont need the money anyway, but not so funny to the venezuelans.

When @curie was favored with their delegation and applied rules that excluded my content from consideration they effectively robbed me of a little value from every vote I've gotten.
When @dtube votes 100's of sbd to a video, those sbd come from 100's of newbs getting nothing.
The less sp voted for you, the less defense you have against having your rewards rounded down by bullies taking advantage of their power in the math.

You dont have to take my word for it, ask @paulag, she didnt believe me, neither.

So, allow me to thank you for all the minnows that got their rewards rounded down so you could tickle your funny bone.
:flips a bird:
:eyeballs you too bidbot owners:

Perhaps u could show me the math...? It’s possible I don’t quite understand it, the way u see it i mean. I’m also still currently in the research phase trying to obtain as much knowlege about this phenomenon as possible.

It’s clear that you have a very nagative view of the bidbots. And that’s fine, ur totally entitled to ur viewpoint.

I wonder.. did u listen to the song/read the lyrics?

Just curious... bc, i believe we’re addressing both sides of the argument... also there’s no need to flip ppl off (even virturally) when ur having a mature discussion about a topic right?

I cant show you the math, i fly this ship by the seat of my pants.
My guestimates are usually in the ballpark, though.
Like when i see my curation rewards down by 66% i can safely assume that somebody has a new scam, oops, i mean way to profit at the expense of others, on curation.

I can show you @paulag's take on the math, though.
https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@paulag/the-impact-of-unused-steempower-on-the-rewards-pool-blockchain-business-intelligence
There is a flaw in this math, no whale can take 100% of the pool as long as others are voting.
Their take can only reach 99%, and that is unlikely, 80% is fully acheivable, though.
One of her posts says bidbots get 1/3 of the daily rewards, @statsmonkey's reports show another 1/3 going to just the top ten voters, lets figure the next top one hundred voters taking another third, what does that leave for the other 59,000 daily users?

As for flying the bird, what do you consider the statement, 'Screw you, its our stake.' say to you?
Combine that with getting booted from a couple discords for expressing my opinion that declining rewards solves this problem, and that bidbots are bullies, and i think its safe for me to use sign language because they got their fingers in their ears.

I guess i should start to expect intelligent conversations here, ive been getting more of those lately.
So, if the bird isnt meant for you, allow me to apologize for causing you to be collateral damage.

I did read the lyrics, very creative, but forgive me if my empathy for the venezuelans outweighs my appreciation of your humor.

You do know that those .01sbd votes are just going to round down?
Anything less than .02 rounds down, including those votes displayed as .02 because .015 to .019 displays as .02, but isnt actually.
One more screwing of the little guys courtesy of the math.

Thx for the info, i needa re-read the posts u suggested tho, so i know that i fully understand the ramifications being presented in them before discussing it further. The first time through hurt a little lol. I’m not that great with math ;)

Btw, i was checkin out your blog yestetday, some interesting subjects and content (nice).

I did want to ask you about Crowdfundedwhale tho. I noticed that it votes on ur posts. Respectfully, i’m just a bit confused as to how/why this particular bot seems okay to you, where as the others seem to be not okay...

I also bought into crowdfunded whale when it first launched so obviously i support it...

Essentially it is a from of bid-bot tho. Ppl send steem or sbd to it and in return it votes on all their post right ;)

Honestly, i appreciate the discourse we’ve been having. So hopefully it’s cool to keep discussing this stuff without it turning into something negative.

Cheers 🍻

You are right cfw is contradictory, i will have to abandon it eventually, but for now, i dont think anybody will begrudge me my .32sbd per post.
Especially considering poking the bears is decidedly unpopular among those that go along to get along.
Many days cfw has been my largest voter.

Thanks for your kind words about my content.
As a dissenter i dont take your counter-dissent personally, and rarely break out the ad hominems.
At least until you stick your fingers in your ears, and then you wouldnt hear what i said, anyways.

I'm pretty new and may be wrong but it seems Steemit as a platform and Steem as a cryptocurrency derives value from the quality of content creation and the stability and growth of the platform will only be sustainable if there is quality content that people want to read and engage with. The users of Steemit are in a sense the owners of it, both figuratively and because of their monetary investment literally also. Most platforms have someone at the helm steering the ship but it seems to some extent Steem is a conglomerate of large and small influencers with varying degrees of self interest that all have a stake but the ship ends up sailing whrever the tides go. It seems right now there is not enough incentive in the long term platform value investment (that is increasing/rewarding quality content) vs the short term money to be made by selling votes. Hopefully the tide will turn on this or someone or some groups working behind the scenes are going to grab the wheel at some point

The wheel was grabbed, but stinc hardforked to bring us here.
Some of the responsible whales flagged the abusive whales and stinc enabled vote selling and negated the experiment so that the abusive whales could continue.

To the question in your title, my Magic 8-Ball says:

You may rely on it

Hi! I'm a bot, and this answer was posted automatically. Check this post out for more information.

Bidbots in a low economy like we have now is a lose-lose proposition.
It's best to just keep on creating the lamest posts ever.

Posted using Partiko Android

Great tune guys...this made my day :)

So how much did you put down on this post all total for bots?

Debating on using them myself!

This post I believe is not an abuse to bidbots, it deserves to be on the trending page...I really like the song. Congrats @steembirds...

Hahahahaha this is freaking awesome!!

Im not a fan of bid bots. You will lose money. I have lost money using bid bots.
I just wrote an article on it about 1 hour ago.

https://steemit.com/crypto/@clearbluecrypto/upvote-bots-are-not-a-consistent-means-of-earning-passive-income

Humans have always a tendency to get lazy, (i.e innovate, automate, progress) there is always to side of the coin here. One is efficiency, and the other is accuracy. I use bid bot since they always do what i wanted, on the other hand, it can be abused, using it from other means, or it no longer identifies what should be done.

⛔ this will kill this platform. there are couple issues in steemit! if you have money, you have power to downvote, upvote,... the rich gets richer and the poor with good content are struggling⚠️
it needs some updates ⚠️✌️

🚫bidbots

In my opinion the bid bots have destroyed the Trending page. There is already the function to PROMOTE a Post. That will get your Post to the Promoted page without doing damage to the Reward Pool. The main Problem is that the Bots keep getting more an more SP every day. So its getting harder and harder to stop them.

That’s definitely a good point. Most of the t-pg is crap posts. However, bc it’s already been taken over, what r u thoughts on steemians with seemingly “good” content retaking the t-pg by fighting fire with fire?

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