Upvote Bots: a Problem that Concerns us all... (thoughts and opinions)

cryptoeater (69) in upvotebots • 7 years ago (edited)

What are your opinions on upvote bots? I know there are many people who are against them and think that they're ruining the platform yet others invest a lot of money into making and maintaining them or buying upvotes from them.

My thoughts

I personally do not delegate to any upvote bots but do frequently purchase upvotes from them. I find it a necessity on this platform to purchase votes or else I do not get any attention from my posts. I have just over 900 followers right now but when I post something without an upvote bot, I barely get any comments or upvotes, usually less than 10 upvotes of which most come from other bots.

I feel like upvote bots is ruining the platform honestly, but if they're here the only way to get exposure is to utilise them. Without upvote bots, perhaps the platform will be a lot more of an even playing field but until then, the fastest way to grow is to pay for growth.

Discussion

Does anyone feel like there is a valid solution? The only real solution I can think of is giving warnings to random users and downvoting random upvotes from bots. This is quite a drastic measure but perhaps the only way to stop the dominance of upvote bots on the platform. Hopefully others have less drastic measures to keep the situation under control! I'd love to hear what you have to say!

I KNOW IT'S IRONIC I'M USING UPVOTE BOTS FOR THIS POST!!

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7 years ago by cryptoeater (69)

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wf9877 (69) · 7 years ago

I don't know the bots are good or bad. I can't see the bigger picture. One thing I know is that the bots are better than the promotion on steemit.

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1 vote

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cryptoeater (69) · 7 years ago

That's for sure! I think bots are bad for the platform but as long as they exist, I feel like utilising them is the only way to succeed on this platform at the moment.

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cicbar (67) · 7 years ago

At Steemit there is no way without using bots to get your article being seen even if you are not new user...

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1 vote

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cryptoeater (69) · 7 years ago

Yeah... it's really sad. I have almost 1000 followers but most of them are bots or have probably over 1000 following. I try to keep following under 100 at all times (around 60 right now) so I know I'm looking at content I like and enjoy, or know the person personally through Steemit.

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1 vote

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reinaldoverdu (66) · 7 years ago

I think otherwise @cicbar, I think that if you do a good job of spreading the post by several social networks you can achieve something. What I think we should avoid is the abuse of bots, and I firmly believe in the rational use of them. I find that the problem is in the abuse, many people with a lot of voting power who only think about them and forget that steemit is a social network, that is to say that it is based on mutual support.

I wish you a happy day and a better life

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1 vote

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cicbar (67) · 7 years ago

So you think that is better to promote post on Steemit(social network) on other social networks. Your post will see more people but how many of those people have account on Steemit that can reward you. Using bots is much better for promotion.

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reinaldoverdu (66) · 7 years ago

@cicbar but you reach a greater number of visualizations although the person does not have an account here in steemit. and it seems to me that for those of us who are writers, bloggers and content creators, one of the most important factors beyond making money is that the work you do is known and above all attract new people to steemit. if we stay with the same amount of people that are already here in steemit in the long run people will get bored. I think you have to attract new people. steemit needs a lot more people with voting power, new creators of content that support us and you. the profit is not mutual and I think that we should not fall into the error of despising a minniow because it has little sp power, because that minniow can viralize your content, without the need to use a bot. I use bots to support me, but I also believe in the need to encourage interaction between humans, because it is one of the principles of steemit, I am not criticizing you, but I think we have to do more what you, @cryptoeater and I are doing . Talk to people to make themselves known. I think that it is not hard to dedicate 5 or 10 minutes with a person like I am doing now with you, to make yourself known. and in that sense you do not need bots. maybe if steemit in the future launched a proposal for a free bot to make resteem would be a good idea. I do not know what you think about it.

I wish you a happy day and a better life

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1 vote

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cicbar (67) · 7 years ago

I agree that there should be more options for people to get seen without investing money in bots. I personally look to find new interesting users and try to support them if they deserve that in my opinion.

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realestatecoach (54) · 7 years ago

I do agree. Do not like the idea of using vote bots but just started using them and it does make a difference in the response. Wish it was more designed around the best content received the most upvotes and over time I think it will get back that way but right now money is flowing to the easiest return.

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1 vote

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cryptoeater (69) · 7 years ago

Yup, I think it will take some time but for now bots are the only real way of getting noticed on this platform.

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nonzerosum (61) · 7 years ago

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. The way I see it is that there is a obviously a financial incentive to use upvoting bots, but there is also a psychological pressure to do so. We may all agree that in general the platform would be better off (quality content rising to the top) if everyone refused to use bots, but as soon as a few people start using them then its “why should they profit and not me?”. In Game Theory there is the idea of the equilibrium point, basically the optimum behaviour that individuals within a system perform in order to do better on an a given incentive (i.e. points, money etc), currently here on steemit the equilibrium point seems to be to use bots. Like you say if you stop using them you start missing out.

If a top down change were to occur (somehow removing the upvoting bots), there is a chance that you would earn less than you would when they are in place. A few dollars per post rather than 10s of dollars. If that were the case would you still use the platform?

If the answer is yes, then you may want to consider stopping using them. A good way to encourage a behaviour you want others to also adopt is to perform that behaviour (i.e. not using bots) yourself and demonstrate that you can do quite well while doing so.

The pain will always come from comparing yourself to others.

The way out of this is often to find a different incentives within the system to focus on. In my opinion community is likely the best option here. If you currently have all of your basic needs (food, health, shelter, beer) meet, meeting esteem needs by being part of a community will ultimately satisfy you better than financial rewards.

It’s human nature to focus on the money aspect and it's going to suck losing that but at least this way you will be incentivised by creating a better community rather than finding the best bots to upvote your posts, and this may ultimately keep you on the platform longer than may have otherwise.

After writing this I have no idea if I fully agree with what I have written here (mostly just an chance for me to think out loud about this)

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1 vote

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nonzerosum (61) · 7 years ago

I suppose its more to do with your work getting seen in the first place than the money, sorry rushed ahead with this without reading your post closely enough.

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1 vote

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conradino23 (53) · 7 years ago

Ok so here's the thing. Necessary or unnecessary isn't the real issue here. The real problem is dependence. I see a lot of users whose content is not that exciting to bot everything they post with hard SBD. And yes you're gonna get catapulted to trending page in return, but as soon as you feel the taste of success you're gonna have to keep botting, cause you didn't build any support system and your new followers won't care much about botted posts... while you could've invested this money in SP and grow real value of your account that way. I bot rarely and only with low sums.

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2 votes

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nonzerosum (61) · 7 years ago

Great, well put!

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cryptoeater (69) · 7 years ago

Sometimes bots can be actually profitable, which is why I bot all my posts. I only bot when there's a profitable upvote coming in and sometimes I time my articles to get them. On average, I think I'm just under 100% (literally 99.4%) ROI from bots, not including the awareness I receive from them!

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vishera (49) · 7 years ago

I don't really know what to think of upvote bots. You present both sides of the equation here where they aren't good for the platform, but because they are already in the platform, and people will use them, it's like the only way to get people to see your content at all.

If they were gone, then this would be a fair playing field.
But it this case, it's not. Some people can produce great content here, but don't have the resources to pay to reach the top of the page for more readers to follow them.

To be honest I don't know much about this topic on steem. I'll have to look more into them. I'll give it a try without using them, but if I feel I deserve more, I'll maybe try them out. Hopefully if there's a way it won't be available by that time for anybody.

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2 votes

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crypto-econom1st (57) · 7 years ago

It's actually quite funny you used the bots for this post 😂

I actually believe that a few things like the bots and users like @haejin will kill Steemit in the long term.

I also wonder how much return will you get from the bots in the end? I have already read a few stories where Steemonians said that they directly went back to nothing the minute they stopped buying upvotes. So what do you expect?

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1 vote

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cryptoeater (69) · 7 years ago

From my experience, as soon as I stop using bots the upvotes stop coming in and my content gets significantly less views. However, with the upvote bots + my followers contest, I'm hoping to attract some long term followers!

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crypto-econom1st (57) · 7 years ago

I'm really curious to see if that works.

I also wonder if it helps that you have a little amount of Steem?
And do you think it would help to upvote the comments below your posts with high(er) amounts?

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1 vote

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cryptoeater (69) · 7 years ago

I'm hoping it works haha, and yeah I have bought some Steem recently and it's still liquid. And as for up voting, I feel like any amount is alright as long as must the worthwhile comments gets an up vote!

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reinaldoverdu (66) · 7 years ago

Hello Friend. I think that most of the bots are made to win, because although they compensate a part of what is earned in sp, the account is that for every 1 sbd we gain approximately 0.375 sbd, then there is no gain really after doing all the cure discounts. Now using them to get resteem seems like a good idea to me and I'm always in favor of it. if you realize they help even people with high reputation, bloggers up to 70 or more have seen that they use them. I personally think that you have to use bots that are not known or used by everyone that have a good reputation. I recommend visiting the wallets of the bloggers whether they are big or small and check what they are using. Visit the bot and study the transactions you have and then decide whether to use it or not. in this way you can get better benefits. Well at least that's what I do, you have to be careful with these things. I ask you please be very careful not to give a flag to a person who does not deserve it. I have seen many spammers that the only thing they do is shitposting and since they are alternate accounts of a whale, they do not do anything to them. Those who have enough SP have that great responsibility to protect those of us who are younger. as spiderman says: "a great power brings with it a great responsibility". That is my opinion about it.

I wish you a happy day and a better life

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1 vote

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cryptoeater (69) · 7 years ago

You're very right about the shitposting part. I see too much stuff on the trending page that is just pure garbage, but I'm too scared to flag them. They are whales, a -1% downvote from them could ruin my post and destroy a lot of Steem for me. I feel like it should be whale's responsibility to govern whales. Us little guys don't have much and we can't afford to get hated by a whale who could literally destroy our blog and everything we've worked for on this platform! Honestly, I don't think I've flagged too many people. The people I've flagged are usually people with similar SP to me, or lower who post spam over and over again. However, I've now learnt to just ignore them haha

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chibuzorwisdom (62) · 7 years ago (edited)

Please sir @cryptoeater help me with copious details on how to use upvote bots for my post.
Please I really want to grow more on this platform. Even the best and quality post I make barely got 20 votes.
please I'll appreciate it if you give me a link where I can interact with you personally sir.

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2 votes

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josefpius (51) · 7 years ago

Personally I feel the upvotes bots dilutes and ruins the growth process. I believe hard work should have a place here but these not systems give upvotes which isnt genuine success. A steemian should be ready to put in work to his content and good work will always attract good upvotes and response. My opinion tho

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olymar248 (40) · 7 years ago

Well, I believe that the bots have their benefits and have their cons, because as you say it is true, without them the publications do not have the necessary attention, but I must say that for us, the new steemianos, which we are beginning to find difficult make use of them and many times I have had to see high quality content wasted, because it is not taken into account just for the fact of not having the bots, at the same time I watch repeated content, that is to say things that I can find in other networks, being greatly rewarded, which leads me to a question, IS STEEMIT CREATED TO COPY OR RAISE 100% ORIGINAL CONTENT? So dear friend @cryptoeater, I must admit that you say the cruel relationship, we must invest to win, so every day I dedicate myself to read and follow the publications that can help me.

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upmewhale (65) · 7 years ago

You got a 14.76% upvote from @upmewhale courtesy of @cryptoeater!

Earn 100% earning payout by delegating SP to @upmewhale. Visit http://www.upmewhale.com for details!

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conradt (67) · 7 years ago

Im starting to think about getting some Steem delegated and becoming a manual curator of good content - new Steemians who write good content and dont use bots! The bots are really destroying Steemit and the quality of posts on here.

I get people commenting on my posts without using bots - the same people usually comment on my posts - the ones I have built a relationship with over time... Steemit takes time to build a genuine audience and I sometimes think using bots is a bit of a short term solution - as soon as you stop using the bots then the upvotes will dry back up. I want people who are engaged in my content to keep coming back and reading because they are actually interested.

Its a debate with no real answer as yet

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mvelazco (42) · 7 years ago

This is a typical case of a "prissioner's dilemma". We know bid bots are not good for the platform but it would take everyone's cooperation to get rid of them. And it's too easy and tempting to reap the rewards of an underused bidbot (in the environment where people start to join forces to discontinue the use of bidbots). So naturally, there will always be people that will use them which in consequence would make them prosper...
The platform would have to make them illegal for this issue to take a new direction.

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mvelazco (42) · 7 years ago

So it doesn't matter what i think about them. They are currently here to stay.

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