I commend Kevin and yourself for making the concerted effort to reward quality content especially from newer people. For those with strong voting power, I will state it is greatly appreciated. And isnt that the solution to eliminating the need to buy voting power.
Personally, I have not done it nor will I. I can understand those that do and why they do it. However, if those with the VP voted for quality content, which is posted on here daily, wouldnt minnow turn into bigger fish at a much quicker pace?
I really have no problem with those who upvote their own posts. If one is looking for quality content, cant one find it in his/her own creation. I am sure most feel their stuff is quality.
Ultimately, I dont think anything will stop it. People engage in behavior that is self serving for the most part. People will buy votes simply because it helps them out. It is no different from the posts we see about the whales simply upvoting each other (which isnt completely true but that is another story)....why shouldnt they? If it serves them to "circle" vote, why shouldnt they?
For one i think @randowhale or services that are riskier or on the gamble side is a better form when it comes to the game aspects of voting. Services that offer higher payouts (compared to the required service fee) coming from the rewards pools seems like it removes some kind of value. Not sure if im making sense here but my gut is telling me the economics of such an arrangement is kinda punishing the rest of the network since some really do offer much greater short term rewards without any risk..
I would agree....it does hurt the rest of the network. Anytime gaming the system enables one (or many) to get a disproportionate part of the reward that means that those not gaming the system are affected. It is one thing to upvote your own content since you still have only one vote. However, when votes are bought then you are confronted with a situation where that person has multiplied their votes.
And that hurts the entire system.