RE: Witness Update from @c0ff33a ☕️ Let's talk about Bid Bot's

For me the thing about Bid Bot's was they were allowed to grow and evolve, and if they were having any sort of negative impact then they would have been stopped dead before they started. The fact they were allowed to grow made it obvious to me that they filled a gap that was needed - large Steem power holders unwilling to manually curate but needing to see a return on their investment. And in reality they helped many people, with a little investment in an upvote they got more rewards and saw more interaction and engagement because of it. But like any tool - with no limitation the Bid Bot's were left for people to self regulate how much they put in - and obviously the temptation for many was too great to send massive values to get their content huge rewards - this really was the main problem. Most people were sending a few Steem just to get visibility, the people who abused it sending 100's of Steem to get $200 posts - why they never capped the upvote is beyond me.

I have also seen another side that I missed, and for that I am truly sorry. That was where quality content got hidden below spam and throw away posts that got above it from Bid Bot use - it was something I never noticed or thought about.

But removing Bid Bot use is only really taking us full circle, Trending is no better now then it was in 2017 - all we are getting now is the posts supported in a circle of massive Steem Power holders, or alt accounts of big investors. So now the playing field is all wonky again, the small accounts have no chance of any visibility, while the biggest accounts keep themselves on top. Hoping for curation groups to find a post worthy of a big upvote is not going to really enthuse our Dolphin or lower users - who unless they have big stake friends will just get nothing until they decide to leave.

Bid Bot's didn't cause the problem, but removing them might just be the nail in the coffin.