I care neither a lot, nor a little, I can't show you on a doll where a bot has ever hurt me.
I don't understand it. The most successful people here may or may not use them, but either way, I have not had any trouble much getting success at a level I think is reasonable to me for what I do, despite their existence?
Most of the people here that complain about them the loudest, are mostly just looking for something to blame for their failure to do the work to network, like you and I have done all year, and to make friends and utilize the power of "social" and "networking"
i dont agree nor disagree. i think success can be had without the bots, and i get that people want to use them as tools for advertising (their money), but a lot centers on how people choose to define "success".
something you might want to consider is that not all people have your talent, drive, skills or ambition.
for as much as i try to network, my social skills are backwards and networking will always be a bit of a fail. it's important to realize that networking is not an easy skill for some people, so saying that people have failed to network or failed to do the work and thats why they arent successful, thats imho, wrong thinking. they just havent been successful at it.
on the other hand ive seen some people make it to dolphin upbotting material that otherwise might not make them more than a few dollars. upbotting is a "skill" in a sense, but it shouldnt be. that's like saying people who have extra money or who are willing to take a risk deserve the huge profit.
this sends the wrong signal out, that no matter how we believe in a new paradigm, we still have the mindset of the old one, where money equals power, or who you know (cronyism) gets you ahead.
at some point we need to decide if we want to support the same values that got us to the hole we are in today.
It all comes down to the notion of unrealistic expectations.
Instead of thinking that this could be more productive compared to all the time they used to spend on Facebook or Twitter, they come in here telling themselves that they should be earning a full-time wage.
Funny thing is, they don't try to understand what is going on here before making "suggestions".
One of the biggest reasons I joined steemit was to be more productive than I was on Facebook. I spend way more time here than I ever did there, but at least now I feel good about it. I feel like I'm supporting someone (with comments at least) or building my reputation and actually writing. It's neat. And I get ridiculously excited when something I post makes even twenty cents.
No really, I do. Not cause I'm hard up for twenty cents, but because I adore the fact that someone looked what I wrote well enough to upvote it.