The Infamous Self-Vote.

We've all done it. Well, at least I have. But the truth is, in the long run, self-voting is not only selfish but unsustainable. You'll get downvoted, and if everyone did it, the Steem platform wouldn't make any sense. All the large self-voting whales would destroy the profits of the content creators. Now I am just as guilty of the self-vote as anyone. And I'm not talking about upvoting your own post; I'm talking about upvoting your comments 5+ times per day. So, from now on, I plan on reducing the amount that I self-vote significantly if not entirely. (I will continue to upvote my posts for obvious reasons, but not comments) Together with the entire Steemit Community, we can change Steemit for the better. Authors will get paid more, and spammers will get paid less. Now I will get into three profitable alternatives to Self-Voting.

Alternative #1 - Advanced Curation

Now I know what your're thinking, "I've heard it all, there’s not much money to be made in curation," but you would be wrong. Most users that attempt curation either use a service like Steemvoter or try to do 100% manual curation. Well, I have a better solution.

• https://sydneyitguy.github.io/understeemed/

Understeemed is this cool, little website that allows you to find undervalued posts by predicting what posts will become popular. It ranks the posts by author reputation, previous post-earnings, number or characters, number of images, current value, and number of current upvotes. For example:

• https://steemit.com/writing/@michelle.gent/https-steemit-com-writing-michelle-gent-blood-on-the-moon-serialised-exclusive-for-steemit-29
  When I upvoted this post, it was at less than 10 SBD; now it's over $120!

• https://steemit.com/gaming/@gaming-stuff/4-great-games-from-1997
  When I upvoted this post, it was less than a dollar; now its almost $20.

With proper experimentation and judgment, you can repeat this process over and over and make a great and fair profit!

Alternative #2 - MinnowBooster (24.5%)

Minnow booster is great for those who don't want to use their own voting power but want to sell it for daily payments instead. They pay out 24.5% interest each year with the payments divided and paid daily. They get to then use that Steempower however they choose. It’s a win-win.

For more information - https://steemit.com/steempower/@steemtools/rent-and-lend-steempower-on-the-minnowbooster-market

Alternative #3 - Bellyrubbank (45%)

Bellrubbank was created by the well-known witness @zerutul. It is a fantastic alternative to Minnow Booster. You send your SBD or Steem and receive a monthly payment. After three months you will receive 11.25%; after an entire year you will receive 45%. A fantastic deal! There are zero stocks that can offer dividends this good! The only downside is that you have to have your Steem in liquid form, so you'll have to power down your Steempower.

For more information - https://steemit.com/bellyrubbank/@bellyrubbank/bellyrub-has-a-bank-account-on-steemit-bellyrubbank-17-active-deposits

In Conclusion

It's 100% your choice what you do with your upvote. If you want to self-vote, go ahead! But self-voting is harmful and greedy. It breaks up the reward pool and rewards spam instead of quality post creation. High-quality posts will bring outside views from search engines. These increased views will then bring an increase of cash flow into Steem. This will increase the price. (Hopefully!) I hope that this can provide some profitable alternatives to self-voting. Maybe together we can make a difference.

Your friendly neighborhood curator - @edolo

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Let me know if you resteem for a large upvote!

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