Am I stupid?

Delegating Steem Power out for free? What the F! Words from someone who is either stupid, or just cares for Steem/Steemit.

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Delegating to the engaged

For me, comments(replies) are the grease that oils the Blockchain here on Steemit. Without them, no matter how epic the post is, things would look pretty sad.

In fact, many high earning posts look pretty sad. Reasons for lack of engagement in the replies could be down to a few things:

• A shit post
• An author that frequently doesn't respond to comments
• Post is so good that words can't describe

Of course there are many low earning posts without much engagement, but the reasons for that would also include:

• Lack of exposure

Anyway, back to delegation and my question in the title of the post.

For months now, I've been following a trend, i'll even say a growing trend just to fluff it up a bit - I don't know if it's growing, but there are a few people around who have been or are currently, delegating their Steem Power to other users for $0 - Free - Nothing at all.

Here are a few of these people off the top of my head. If you are someone delegating SP for nothing and reading this post, let me know so I can add you to my awesome people list.

@stellabelle, @steevec, @fulltimegeek, @paulag, @tarazkp, @techslut, @wwf, @carlgnash, @cheneats, @coolguy123, @cranium, @crimsonclad, @drakos, @flauwy, @goldendawne, @hendrix22, @hitmeasap, @howtostartablog, @inquiringtimes, @kubbyelizabeth, @lyndsaybowes, @old-guy-photos, @skycae, @taskmaster4450, @karensuestudios, @aggroed, @simplymike ...

I choose to delegate my Steem Power to people who are engaging here on Steemit. A weekly league, which is open to all is produced with some not so secret metrics, and the top places/most in need of a boost, recieve a little delegated Steem Power.

Names on the list above may have chosen to review this list or not, it doesn't really matter - they are delegating their Steem Power out for absolutely nothing.

So I guess my question is better put: Are we stupid?

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Delegating to Bid-bots

In light of the well advertised recent delegation by a mega-whale @thejohalfiles to one of the newer Bid-bots, @smartsteem, I thought I'd have a look at what this delgation means financially to this account, and what this could do for me too.

In brief, it's possible to delegate your Steem Power to a 'Bid-bot', which will then pay you interest on this amount (daily in most cases), which varies depending on how much the Bot takes each day. If you haven't looked, they take a lot - meaning, the 'Bidding rounds' are almost always full, and not just that, they are usually oversubscribed. In short, they are making a $hiteload of SBD/STEEM, and can afford to pay their delegates handsomely.

This is the calculation estimate for @thejohalfiles:

No, you didn't read it wrong, it does actually say 1060 SBD a day

Is it any surprise that he's sacked off the day job for a passive daily income of $3776?

So what does that calculation look like to me?

Daily: 8.9 SBD / $31.6
Weekly: 62.3 / $221.8
Monthly: 267.1 / $950.9

(1 SBD = $3.56 at time of writing)

Almost $1000 a month, for doing absolutely nothing. Wow.

Instead though, I'm paying for 4000 delegated Steem Power (at a really good rate of 40 STEEM a month), and delegating almost all of it out, for nothing. On top of that:

Oops. Duh?!

My curation rewards (the other income option for your Steem Power) are looking like they will be 10-15 Steem Power (not SBD) a week, (which is vested STEEM) and a little lower than the price of SBD at present, so let's take the highest value and calculate what this return is for a month:

15 x 4 x $3.47 = $208

A bit of a mismatch there?

Again, you can't blame some accounts for switching to this income stream - it's almost 500% more lucrative in my case.

Now, you may be wondering where I'm going with this, and I do want an honest answer to the post title, but I would like to say first:

Short term pain, long term gain

I'll continue delegating my Steem Power and continue to give more of it out to those that are here greasing the chain, making me laugh, producing work that is worth sharing, commenting, and encouraging people to do the best they can.

I don't ask for a vote from these accounts, I just ask them to contribute to a making this place better.

Nope, I'm not stupid, I just give a shit about Steemit.

Asher @abh12345