The Truth About Why Bid Bots Are Here

in fuckbidbots •  7 years ago 

The whales who gave us bidbots were already making good returns on their holdings. Excellent returns would actually be a better adjective, but perhaps still not a strong enough word when you consider the increasing value of STEEM.

So why would someone who was already making - simply through upvoting content or their selves - a very decent amount of money every day, bother to start selling votes? I ask that question with the thought in mind that vote-selling is a phrase made acceptable only by this platform, and so at the time, it surely seemed like a potentially illegal and definitely nefarious option.

So why would one put their - considerable - stake at risk by hijacking the daily reward pool and auctioning it off? Well it is quite simple, from where I am sitting at least.

Yes, these whales were making excellent profits before bidbots, but they already had enough money, and if they are smart, they already understood how much money they would have when STEEM goes considerably higher next year.

Money was not the goal. They have hijacked the reward pool because earning profits doesn't help them retain the influence they have become so accustomed too unless they are earning profits at a rate which negates the distribution of STEEM across the network. In other words, whatever percentage of total STEEM they held, they would need to be acquiring that same percentage of the reward pool or their influence would begin to dwindle - which was supposedly the whole point and how this distribution of STEEM was going to stay fair.

It seems to me that it was fear of losing influence over the network amidst an - almost - fair distribution that led these members of our community to fuck us. They aren't psychopaths who take pleasure in taking food from the plates of their fellow community members, they are simply men who found their selves scared they were going to lose the power they had grown to love.

I do not know what role Steemit Inc played in things, but I have noticed some peculiarities surrounding the previous hardfork decisions that seem also to have paved the way for bidbots intentionally. I am going to investigate and think on those observations more before making such a brazen accusation, however.

So now we have a community whose most influential members appear - to me - to be driven by fear. And thus, we have an entire community whose progression is dictated by fear. If we would rather a community that is dictated by something healthier, then we need only stop empowering those who are afraid of not having power, or find a way to help them overcome their own fears so that they can become leaders for us all, instead of for their selves and their sycophants.

Authors get paid when people like you upvote their post.
If you enjoyed what you read here, create your account today and start earning FREE STEEM!
Sort Order:  

You are aboslutely right.
These small minded, petty tyrants finally found some power and they noticed that in two years a sizable chunk of it would be gone.
Here are the numbers that prove it.

Stinc is in on it, no other explanation matches all the facts.
@smooth and @abit had made the community response with their experiment.
Minnows mattered in the math.
Distribution was getting broader, and stinc put the kibosh on it.
You cant tell me the math majors that designed steem didnt know what hf18 & 19 would do, and chose abuse over mass adoption, intentionally.

I am not sure what I am supposed to be looking at on those charts you linked?

They show how distribution is concentrated on the middle two classifications.
If you look at the bottom of each class you will see what percentage has gone to that class of user.
The 'legends' are getting ~10% or so.
So, excluding bot delegation, their hold on power is quickly shrinking.

My 10,000th post!

I suggested to simply change the promoted page to the home page, can't see a better and more immediate change that comes with no blowback, and it takes less than 10 seconds to implement.

I have thought that the trending page should be changed to either max 1 post per user or post stays on trending until it hits $100 SBD. After that it does not need to be trending because it has already earned a decent amount of money.

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Yeah but trending was not made for getting exposure as promotion was intended, trending is there so that people can review what content is getting massive chunk of the reward pool, and the purpose behind that is for giving exposure in the sense of "hey these are the posts that are getting the most rewards" so that abuse will get exposed. Imagine if haijin was getting all his posts off trending once they hit the limit, he would go off the radar as soon as he self-votes.

Promotion should be made into the homepage so that people actually have a reason to promote and at the same time take away any excuse people can hide behind for selling and buying votes. Trending has a really important feature and its not to promote or give people exposure and if its exposure its there to prevent abuse mpre than to get support, and promotion actually has the function of providing exposure but right now its like promoting behind the store by the loading docks, completely undermimed and so pointless.

I would be curious what percentage of the rewards pool is distributed out by just bot votes. Now imagine those huge bot votes spread out amongst 20-50-or maybe 100 users. I’m sure a lot of people would like to see a post of theirs get that amount in potential payout. Even if it is only $1 😉
Greed and power take morals and grind them underneath their boots.

30% was the last number i saw.
So, 30% goes to the top ten voters, 30% to the bid bots, another 30% to the next 100 largest voters, leaving ~10% for everybody else, ~60k users.
Respective sources @statsmonkey, @paulag, guestimate, could be more or less, @penguinpablo.