Dear fellow Steemians,

The question comes up occasionally "Are the upvote bots worth 'investing' into?" I want to take a moment to give my thoughts about the upvote bots... who I affectionately call bribe-a-bots.

Wait, what's an upvote bot?

For anyone who may not know what I'm talking about, there are services available on the STEEM blockchain, where if you transfer your SBD to certain accounts, it will be exchanged for an upvote from a bot (an automated steemit account) which is worth significantly more than the initial 'donation'. I won't mention names, if you've been here a while, you've heard about them by now.

Are they legit?

They are not illegal, they are contractual. They are automated. They are a service. They are not dishonest, they provide exactly what they promise. They even have human customer service that work hard to offer refunds and make things work right.

There are even curation digests for post promotion and encouraging further upvotes. This alone may make it worth while, for promotion purposes.

As a service, I believe they are legitimate, because generally speaking, they follow through with the service agreements.

So what's the problem then?

The questions become this: do they help the STEEM economy? Do they help the minnows who are trying to gain a following? Are they worth it? Is it ethical to use them?

There are two ways of looking at the bots. Either as an 'investment' or as a 'bribe'.

Upvote Bots as an Investment

If I put on my accounting hat and look at it as an investment with a percentage return, I would want to know how much I'm profiting from the service.

From an investment point of view, if done wisely, the bribe-a-bots can be profitable if the upvote value is high enough.

Let's get into the numbers.

If you found a bot that would accept $0.375 for a $1.00 upvote, then it would meet the minimum requirements (in my opinion) to be worth while.

Receiving a $1.00 upvote for $0.375 'donation' would seem as if you are profiting mightily, a 267% increase! But when you do the math, it's not so attractive since you only keep 75% of your upvote and then only 50% back in SBD. So for a $0.375 SBD 'donation' you would receive $0.375 SBD back as a reward + 0.375 SP. To me, this would be a minimum to consider using an upvote bot - to be SBD neutral (not loosing SBD) and gaining the equivalent in STEEM POWER.

Who Profits Most?

From a STEEM economy point of view, bribe-a-bots profit the whales much more than the users in the end, since they receive 25% of the upvote value back again, in addition to your 'donation'. They essentially get paid TWICE.

It's true you get higher exposure, but that's difficult to quantify in terms of profitability. You also have more attractive numbers at the bottom of your posts, but they cost.

Upvote Bot Service as a 'Bribe'

Another way of looking at it is more like a 'bribe' than an 'investment'.

If that account was owned by a human and you contacted him privately and said, "Psst, If I send you SBD, would you upvote my post?" It becomes a shady, back room agreement. Imagine the smoke filled room with bill-folds being handed over.

It's Not Really that Shady

But it's not a back-room deal with a person, it's a service offered by a bot. It's out in the open, everyone knows you're receiving paid-for upvotes from a bot. It's socially acceptable. Everyone's doing it.

What is the experience really like? Dirty?

Not at all! Speaking from experience (I've used my fair share of upvote bots in the past) the real transaction with a bot is nothing like a shady Walmart parking lot transaction.

It's more like a vending machine.

Put your paper dollar in... eerrrrrrr... select which post you want upvoted.... ding. Done! Your post just received a $1.23 upvote, congratulations!

Are they a Scam?

No, I don't think upvote-bots are a scam, but they are artificial curation. The bot does not care if it's a good post of not. It sort of 'breaks' the Steemit system by upvoting based on financial compensation rather than quality.

BTW your posts may be of excellent quality, but in the case of the author using the upvote-bot on their own post, the curation is determined by the author rather than the curator.

What's my alternative, I've got all this SBD I want to invest!

In my opinion, the best use for SBD is to hodl until STEEM is low (or in a bizarre situation like now SBD is high) and then use 'MARKET' to purchase STEEM.

Buy low, sell high.

Once you purchase STEEM, it can be converted to STEEM POWER at your convenience whenever you like. This also helps boost the overall value of STEEM because of increased demand. If you repeatedly sell your SBD for STEEM, you are consistently putting in buy orders, showing potential investors that this might be worth exchanging their Bitcoin for, thus encouraging the value of STEEM to increase.

If the value of STEEM to increases, all of our posts will be worth more.

Conclusion

I leave it to the user to determine whether the upvote bots are worth while. It's my opinion that there are better options for SBD. I encourage everyone to form their own opinions on the bots, but to also base their opinion by understanding about what they are and how they work.

The people who run the bots and maintain the services work very hard, it's not just a money machine for them. But ultimately I believe too much reliance on the upvote bots will damage the value and dispersion of wealth in the STEEM economy.

I'm sure there are many opinions out there about the bots, let me know in the comments. I try to respond to them all.

@ironshield

IMAGES 1, 2, 3, 4