How long will it be before witness slots are dominated by vote-sellers?

Vote selling has been an issue which many users are polarized but have people really thought through the implications to their logical conclusion. I wanted to present a problem that I think, whether you assent to vote buying or not, which I believe may prompt users to think on a broader scale.

A witness is an account selected by Steem users to help secure the network and produce blocks. We should be able to trust that these individuals will act in the best interests of the Steem blockchain and are chosen via stake weighted vote mechanism. This means that the more Steem Power an account has the more value their vote will be in witness election.

So, what’s the problem?

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Many vote-sellers also happen to be witnesses.. A trend I’ve noticed is these bot running witnesses tend to have themselves set as their proxy on their bot. Essentially, they are selling their voting power to accumulate massive amounts of Steem Power and turning around and using their bid bot to self vote their witness accounts. Some of these know exactly what they are doing and to these I say.

I know what you’re thinking. Sure, it’s their stake and they can do what they want with it but are we ok with vote sellers and their associates dominating the witness slots using this tactic? Perhaps, we have passed the event horizon of this thing but hell if I'm not going to say something about it.

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I could only imagine the number of tacit agreements that vote sellers have arranged with other stakeholders. Vote selling is the name of the game and, if you don't participate, you are essentially viewed as an outsider. Good luck getting votes from the vote selling whales if you don't support their paradigm and business model. It's just the way it is.

Regardless, I'm thankful for the few friends I have on this blockchain that support my activities because they believe in the work I do. Not because I pay them! Yall keep me doing what I do.

I am here to serve and not exploit (even though capitalizing on vote buyers psychology is all the rage.)

That's what Steem should be all about... Unfortunately, it's not.

I know it’s been said before but why would we all not just run our own bid bots and set our Steem accounts on autopilot? The answer is simple. The bid botters need us (content creators). They could not exist without us. Why don't we just opt out of this system? If only it were that simple...

One problem is content creators have a tendency and desire to try and 1-UP each other. What better way to achieve this than a vote selling bot?!

Let's say two accounts who are essentially rivals are competing. Let's call them @pepsi and @cocacola. @pepsi creates a post about their new product. Let's call it "Super Mountain Dew". This post gets upvoted by the Steem community to Hot and @cocacola isn't having it. They decide to upvote their "Insert Generic caffeinated High Fructose Corn Syrup beverage example here" post to Trending using bots.

Maybe, @pepsi will turn around and bid bot their post is turn. Let's say this little rivalry goes on for some time. Perhaps, they will ROI if they are lucky or perhaps not. We know who will most definitely ROI in this situation though. You guessed it.... The vote seller. Who loses?

The entire breadth of users who rely on organic voting

There is no way in hell they are going to get any votes from that 30% total voting power amassed by bot owners. As these bot owners continue to accumulate SP, the percentage that us advocates of organic voting can hope to receive will continue to shrink. It's FUBAR more than this damn ratchet strap I had the misfortune of having to unravel.

Would not wish this on my worst enemy.

Another issue is the "Well someone else is going to do it so I don't want to miss out" mentality that is adopted by folks. That's a bullshit cop out in my humble opinion. You haven't seen me delegating to bid bots now, have you?

As many already know, selling voting power is the vehicle for the highest ROI on the blockchain. It requires comparatively minimal effort compared to proof-of-brain contributions as a fair portion of the process is automated.

That’s the part that irritates me as there is not much meritorious about running a bot and, furthermore, it re-appropriates the reward pool for a purpose other than rewarding quality content but rather rewarding whoever helps perpetuate the bid bot SP accumulation cycle by sending STEEM/SBD. This system favors whoever has the deepest pockets aka “pay to play”.

Our tolerance of this practice stands incongruent with the typical bewailing of the world’s corrupt political process and how it is easily manipulated by big money. Is this so different? How is it that we can rally against the bankers and politicians one moment but we gladly embrace that same iniquity when it is present in another system? A system that accentuates the disadvantages of the poor. We could have so much unfound talent on this blockchain but we will never know because they just don't have the resources.

All this under the guise or self-delusion of “promotion services”. This lie has been promulgated long enough that I surmise that even vote sellers themselves are starting to believe it. The problem is that it's just not that simple and, if it were, then be my guest and do this.

"Decline Payout", what a novel concept! If you really are just promoting your posts, you don't mind burning the rewards, right? This should also benefit us all by keeping the supply down. Sounds like a win win but there's a problem. Why would I decline rewards when I can promote my post and make my money back? That sounds too good to be true but it is still possible to ROI on bots.

_{You know what they say. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is..}

I commend the bot owners that have designed their bots to NOT be a vehicle for ROI but rather purely promotional purposes. I believe @promobot is designed to that end. Also, @lrd is another bot that actually burns rewards so I appreciate that.

Before any of you bid bot propagandists try to respond with the typical talking points, I must make it abundantly clear that there are notable distinctions between buying votes and actual post promotion. Just stop the misinformation and call it what it is. It's post rewarding services. It sounds stupid because it is...

If I promote a post on Facebook, it doesn’t automatically get likes. If I boost a post on Minds.com, it doesn’t automatically get likes. When we “promote” with bid bots on Steem, the post automatically gets upvotes. That's the difference and there isn't no dancing around it. There is more than promotion going on. There is allocation of the reward pool.

These votes confer a perception of the post having value which will result in others voting based on that perception.
The incentive to be an effective curator based on post quality is severely nerfed by vote sellers. It would be much easier to merely preempt bot votes for curation rewards. Believe me as someone that knows how to automate voting, this has been tempting but I knew better.

As long as people are willing to send them Steem / SBD, these bots will control even more of Steem’s total voting power which will, in turn, secure their witness ranks. With the witness rank, they will receive additional SP to further power their self-voting bid bots and thus the cycle perpetuates further entrenching themselves in the witness ranks.

As a seasoned server engineer, there was a point in time that I had considered purchasing the hardware to run a witness but, at this point in time, I question why I would put myself out there when the system is hopelessly skewed in favor of vote sellers. I don’t have a whale bidbot to proxy vote myself so the chances of my making a rank sufficient to offset operating costs are negligible.

I do have certain automation skills that I have been offering to better the blockchain but only a handful of people care about this. Maybe it would be better if I just drop some $$$ and run another bid bot. Everybody and their mom is doing it after all. Why don't I you may ask?

Where do I start?

• Destroys the curation incentive
• Facilitates shitposts getting rewarded.
• Centralizes Steem distribution / voting power
• Disadvantages those with less resources irrespective of the talent the bring to Steem.

If you really want this blockchain to be revolutionary, it's time we stop replicating the same broken systems that came before us.

The question is do we have the resolve to fight the human nature inside each of us that birthed them?