Are Bots The Problem Or Are People The Problem?

This is a question that has been postulated several times since the beginning of Steemit. 

There are 2 sides to the Bot equation:

1. Do we hate bots because they contribute nothing and take everything?

2. Do we hate bots because we are jealous of what they are able to accomplish?

Number 2 is the sticky one... That one is the one I fall under, well sort of. I struggle to consistently make anything on most of my posts and apart from Project Curie, I would probably rarely crack the $1 threshold. This is not meant to be a complaint because I am thankful for every dime that is earned. It is meant as a show of sympathy and empathy for a lot of the users on the site as I am sure they can relate. However, this is not where the jealously should be placed. Bots are not causing the wealth disparity and they are not inherently bad for the platform.

Behind every Bot, there is a programmer, a person, a living breathing organism made up of organic matter. That person decides what a Bot will do. There seems to be a misunderstanding between what exactly is a bot  and what is simply a person taking advantage of the system. 

A bot, as mentioned above is an extension of it's programmer. Each Bot costs money to make and it costs money to operate. Most of the Bots on the site are limited to voting and basic replies. Most probably aren't even making money for their creators. There are no bots out there that are creating their own content and publishing it under a pen name collecting thousands of dollars per post. That technology doesn't currently exist and that entire process is something with an entirely different name...

People gaming the system.

People are taking advantage of the current rewards system. They are doing so by buying other's work and presenting it as their own. An example would be spending $100 to buy posts that the buyer deems as potential money makers and then he sends these posts out from different accounts, hoping one or more of them hit big and earn hundreds or thousands of dollars. As long as this process remains profitable, they will continue to do it. They are not breaking any rules, technically. Are we mad that they are gaming the system or are we mad that we hadn't thought of it first? Or maybe we are mad they we don't have the resources to implement such a scheme?

Either way... Bots are not the problem. What most people are calling Bots are not even Bots at all.

We don't have a Bot problem... we have a people problem. The current witch hunt going on where all Bots are considered evil and that they are the reason why we are not making enough money needs to end. Our efforts should be focused where the real problems are... 

Fixing the payment system. 

As of right now we are all fighting to gain share of an ever shrinking pie... and it's shrinking by design. In order to get things to change and to alter the way people are gaming the system, we might have to tinker with the way things are currently set up...

I don't currently have the answer as to how to fix it... but unless we are experiencing exponential growth at all times it is going to be an ever shrinking pie... How can we fix this? Can it be fixed? Right now Steemit has first mover advantage when it comes to this site's technology, but we need to do it right otherwise we will be what Blackberry was to Apple in regards to the smart phone...

Let the debate begin!

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