I just read a relatively poor post by a very high-rep user complaining about the lack of value his posts are garnering and as a result, he is going to use voting bots. Great, the 'system allows it', as so many keep repeating as if that makes it okay. But, I was handed this post by a couple of people as some kind of proof of how hard it is and it interested me.

He had complained that he was no longer getting support from his whales that he has become accustomed to and hopes that he can attract more whales with bidbot visibility. So, I went on a very shallow rummage through the account's content and indeed, support is pretty low.

Do you know the first thing I checked on his account? Comments. 30-40 comments from his followers but, almost zero replies from him on almost every post I checked. Is that what is called engaging with the audience? How can one expect consistent support when one treats the audience with apparent disdain? I would suggest people stop bothering wasting their time commenting unless they just like to type.

Smells of entitlement.

I understand that it is difficult to answer all comments from the audience but considering that this person 'lives off Steem' you'd think that they would be spending a good deal of their time building a strong foundation. Perhaps he only answers if the Steem power of the user is high enough.

I have mentioned this a lot lately that living off Steem is risky but do you know what the riskiest position is, living off Steem when it requires the upvotes of other people. In my opinion, if when things go south you can't look after yourself, you have not prepared well enough to live off anything as you become a charity case. Charity recipient isn't a job, people need to wake up.

Yes, I complain about a lot of things on and off this platform but this is quite rich coming from someone who has been getting a lot of support over the last 2 years. Yes, I understand that times are tough but a rep in the mid 70s complaining about getting the kind of support that many thousands of others might kill for?

This is the same problem with many of the people here who want to make a living from Steemit, they only want to do the things that they want to do. Obviously, commenting is not one of them for this guy. People need to take a step back and actually look at all of their processes from time to time and see which do and which do not support their requirements.

If you want to be a professional, you need to make sure you have the skills necessary and one of those skills at Steemit is audience engagement. 'Reliance on whale friends' is not a skill. Acting like a petulant child shouldn't be a skill either but, apparently it is.

Btw, from what I have noticed so far, bumping the post for engineered visibility seems to have very little impact on gaining high quality followers. I think for the most part, those whale types are unlikely to find content based on trending because if they did, that Brazilian guy with the guitar would no longer need to buy votes right? No. Take away the bidbots and he is back to close to zero. Zero once the frontrunners stop voting trying for increased curation.

Quality followers come through organic development, not bidbots and that requires a great deal of work to develop. The 2016'ers need to start to recognise that the platform is changing and whether they like it or not, they are going to have to start to do some actual work to compete in the space. People are going to have to start taking 'building a community' a little more seriously.

Many seem to have decided that autovoters are going to autovote forever and friends are going to continue to support regardless. Nope, what many have found is that some of the whales who previously supported them didn't actually care so much for their content after all. What they are doing now however is selling their vote to the highest bidder. Perhaps this guy can actually get his whale friends back, he just has to pay for them.

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]

I actually like these rant posts as it is somewhat cathartic. Should I do more?