Turning tides: One-sided public discourse on bidbots

I am not very politically active as for the most part, I don't see the changes it makes as the average person in the real world is happily living lead by an authority in an environment engineered to oppress them. The things they find important are the things they have been told to find important, the things that they fight for are what their attention has been told to look at. It is a big reason many people found a place at Steemit, a place where there was some chance to break free of the centralised control and take a little control back. So, I have been campaigning. It is strange.

From the first few weeks of bidbots some 9 months or more ago, I have been questioning the system, the processes and the people who run them with very, very little feedback. It was like banging my head against a wall because at that point, it was a minor thing, small amounts. There was no way one or two SBD's sent to @randowhale were going to boost a post into trending so for the most part, people didn't care. They saw quick, easy gains so the future didn't matter. But, it was inevitable that it would escalate because, that is what it must do when competition arrives.

It didn't take long before the previous circlejerk Trending authors were complaining about their profits as the autovoters they enjoyed began delegating to the bidbots instead. Their friends had abandoned them for more ROI. Seems they didn't actually like their content enough after all. Why only make curation returns when one could get 90% returned of a self-vote without ever having to write a post or read an article? They didn't even need to click a button, set and forget and watch the wallet grow. The circlejerk Trenders were now replaced by nonsense content often, even more nonsense than their own had been.

It was then that people started to pay a little attention to what was going on, it was then that the first forays into checking the numbers were made and the initial figures pointed to a narrow band of users benefiting but were not conclusive. The evidence has been mounting though hasn't it? Time and time again the blockchain has been queried and it is pulling more and more data showing just how much profit the bidbots are making and just how much they are drawing from the pool, the pool everyone is meant to be drinking from.

Now, my campaigning hasn't been with placards, I haven't been marching on the streets screaming for my rights as a user or how unfair it is. All I have done is ask question after question after question. In my experience and from my understanding, it is the questions asked that change the world and that should be no different in the Steem ecosystem.

But, questions are not enough, answers are needed but even now, nine months later, very few are forthcoming. The owners/ delegators/ operators of the bidbots are still largely silent, still unwilling to engage with the community. People need to ask more questions perhaps.

Like @abh12345 (someone who can query the blockchain and has found some numbers for me) asked: What happens if everyone delegates to bidbots? Have a read of the replies.

But, still adequate answers aren't forthcoming. Ask yourself, these bidbot operators are blockchain experts yet, they are unable to show with definitive evidence that what they are doing is good for the Steem ecosystem. They are unable to provide the numbers or statistics and like Trump and his tax returns, they are very, very unwilling to open their books and show just what kinds of profits they are making or show the calculations on how much pull on the pool they actually have.

You have to ask, Why? Why would they be so unwilling or unable to provide such evidence? I have been known to be wrong before, to not see the whole picture. If they show me the numbers of how bidbots fundamentally help the community more than they harm it in the long term view of Steem, I might even delegate to and use them myself. These numbers are non-existent, all numbers point to more harm than good.

So far, silence. Silence from the owners, the operators and the delegators.

Not only are they blind to the content they are voting on, they are blind to the community of which they are a part, blind to the damage they cause and blind to the data that proves their position poor. Or are they?

Now, you are going to see the gymnastics, they are going to hijack the conversation away from the real issue just like any good government would, and change the narrative. They are going to focus on the visible Trending authors, call it compromise and find ways to hide their activities, lessen the prominence in the ecosystem so that they can fly under the radar and continue to do what they are doing. They will do this because the people think Trending is important because it seems so. It is not. But, have a read the owner of @dtube, @heimindanger's quick combat solution for trending and the arguments made in the comments section.

Adjusting Trending is not a compromise, it is a counter-campaign, a manipulation to prolong their game to continue to keep extracting from the community. They are not benevolent members of the community, they are self-maximisers and they are acting like any authority would to maintain power.

• Do not let them hijack your potential.
• Do not let them manipulate you.
• Do not let them condition you to stop asking the right questions.
• Do not put yourself back at the mercy of an authority

Right now we have a chance to keep pushing for reform and it might be reform. It is unlikely that all bidbots will be taken out of the market as currently, the profits are just too high but, perhaps there is a better equilibrium, a place where bidbots can exist without causing massive harm to the rest of the community and perhaps, even help the community. I am not sure what that will look like but, it is going to take a hell of a lot more questions, trials and failures to get it right.

Keep asking questions and keep forcing the owners, operators and delegators to answer them publicly.

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]