I really dislike Steem services framed as businesses that pool investor money for passive ROI coming from gaming the reward system.
Aside from getting a post seen better based on pending reward payout, I'm not too sure what other benefits there are which help the community or Steem thrive.
Most know the harm they do for our trending page that shocks and confuses new adopters/investors. Most also know that they tie up Steem Power and encourage apathy and laziness. They also frustrate genuine authors who try to earn their way with effort and respect, while others pay for a service that offers a quick fix, and not a solution. Doesn't seem to healthy to me... BUT they make people easy money!
But, but, these services help give authors a platform to be heard! Yea, if they pay enough liquid Steem or SBD they probably don't have for it...
The entire system of for-profit bots is predicated on people trying to farm Steem from the rewards pool. With tons of Steem allocated to them, this forces more people to think they need to use them in order to be seen, with less and less SP is available for manual rewards or genuine projects that help the community/individuals. Instead, Steemians want the passive ROI that looks good in the daily wallet payouts, but the harm these banks do overall irks me to no end. It's clearly profiteering greed to me. What a clever win-lose system/sinkhole...
While most of the owners are probably well-known in upper tier Slack and Discord channels, I think it's important to be able to identify who runs the major for profit bid-bots. Now some owners have their name and face attached like Jerry B. or Joe P., but most aren't publicly listed.
I know a few and have met a few in person, but not most of them.
So, why would Steemians behind these "businesses" want to keep their names out the picture? Do you know who some are? It bothers me that so many people have issue with them, blog about them, but the owners remain behind their curtains.
Now this site above may not be current because I don't see Steemium on there (which shops across the bots for the most punch/profit for you), but it's just for starters. There's a bid-bot tab and a promo-bot tab, as well as a third tab for others.
I won't name the name of those I know, but I strongly question why they try to keep their names out of it. If their services are so good for everyone, I'd imagine that there'd be no reason not to show their face or let people know who's behind the mask. It'd be good for business and their reputation could help them prosper... right?
If only that SP was used to develop projects or individuals who were trying to make this place better.
Maybe I'm wrong, but this has always been a red flag for me since their inception.
Steem is the Wild West. A public database with social media aspects baked into the infrastructure. No rules. No censorship. No Law of the Land.
Look around, and you'll see a group of prospectors hunting for gold. Or a bunch of outlaws. Or folks around a campfire. Or business types preparing to build a railroad. All of these people have different motivations and objectives. All of them want to use the blockchain for something different.
And all of them have a different vision for what Steem should be.
This includes life with or without bid bots. Or whether users should have the freedom to game or not game the system.
Regardless of one's position, one thing seems to be getting clearer by the day: the current state of affairs is making way for something else. Towns and cities will be popping up with distinct rules and objectives. Some will abolish bid bots and others will embrace it.
PAL is a good example of the first baby step towards creating such a community. It should prove interesting to see how that experiment goes.
Someday you will no longer interact with the raw, unfiltered data of the Steem blockchain. Instead you will access that data via the app that does the best job of providing the user experience you prefer. It seems likely that the app or community you join will have specific terms and conditions that align with what you're trying to get out of it.
In other words, I feel like bid bots is not a long term concern. It's a tiny blip when looking at the bigger picture.
Personally, I've never had an issue with bid bots in general. Some bid bot owners milk the system for all its worth. Others have white lists, black lists, and a more responsible set of best practices to maintain a sense of accountability. Either way, I think it's natural for people to act in their perceived best interests. It's silly to think we can change that.
It's one of those "don't hate the playa, hate the game" scenarios.
The good news is that with Steem Engine, Tribes, SMTs, and Communities...there's a lot of games to choose from on the horizon. If you don't like how chocolate tastes today, then try Strawberry or Vanilla tomorrow.
When that happens, you truly will be able to have your cake and eat it too.
Your investment in Steem will apply to the experience that makes you happiest. You'll look back at mid-2019 and say "wow, remember when Steemit was the only social media platform running on Steem? We were freaking out about how investors would judge that single application! Now we have TONS of applications!"
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I'm a huge fan of analogies. This was a brilliant reply that opened my eyes a bit. You are quickly becoming a solid voice of reason. With this sensible/rational vision, are you interested in running for town Mayor for the time being? Thanks for taking the time to remind me of the bigger picture and teach me a few things.
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Without making it personal, I don't have an issue with the bidbot model.
What I do take an issue with is their complete and utter lack of responsibility when it comes to bad content. I'm not even going to use the word quality.
They will not hold themselves and their customers accountable and thus have had a great negative impact. Had they acted like responsible businesses it wouldn't have been that big of a deal.
I've defended the model many times, but not the current owners.
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I hear ya. I tried not to make it personal either the best I could. Ownership is everything. A sports franchise with the best players on the planet can fall apart if the ownership is bad. Values and responsibility to actually own the business from end-to-end is what a real business owner does. Clearly, the only end most appear to care about is the Steem faucet end.
Terms of service in their fine print is their only defense for now, but that’s nonsense to me. If they don’t enforce it, it’s just fluff. They should hire people to approve those posts they service to protect the integrity of their “business.” If they don’t care in that sense, it’s not a real business.
When people know they’re doing harm to a society, and they feel the income outweighs the detriment, AND they hide, well that makes my Steem boil.
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Steempreneur and developer/ witness lmao what company doesn’t advertise their best assets ? Surely a popular witness would be a good spokesperson and openly support their own business being the same entity ? Derp,
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New management needed. Stick a fork in ‘em... oh wait, we’re about to have them stick a fork in us any day now wearing their multiple hats.
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I can only agree with that!
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I don't think many of the largest stakeholders have any experience with business. I don't think they see that they are harming their own long term profits.
We could have the best math and the best trending and the best gizmo..
If no one knows we are alive it really doesn't matter. There are 2330 ish currencies on CoinMarketCap. How many of them do you know? How many thing do you own that you don't understand... :) We are totally just yanking our own chain. No one outside of Steem gives a shit about any of this internal fighting about the vision.
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Preach! Spot on. If Steem doesn’t work out, you have a bright new career as a Pastor. Can’t add anything to that other than an applause.
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Surely you don't believe that:
Are somehow exclusive from people "knowing that we are alive"..
Or do you think that marketing would solve anything? Why are you sure that marketing a clearly broken system would do any good, what so ever. It would most likely turn us into a laughing stock and no one will ever want to get near us because "it's Steem".
You literally reason that whilst competing in a race, wearing bright neon colors will get us across the finish line first, and that massive oozing puss filled thorn in our foot, that is the struggle we need to succeed, even though, you think it would be better if we simply try not to step too much on it.
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Many companies market a vision knowing they aren't there yet.
Shit Doge is out performing us. Because people talk about it.
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So you think that marketing a clearly broken system will fix the system..
Also, how do you know that dodge is outperforming us, and how do you know it's because of people 'talk about it' and how does that help, or point to fixing a broken system?
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Just a thought, marketing may eventually attract devs and entrepreneurs who will have the knowhow and real financial resources to step in and change things. The whales today don’t own much stake when we compare them to real world whales. Granted, a lot needs to be fixed, but new eyes, ears, opinions and funding from marketing (knowing we’ll not be for everyone) can’t really hurt as much as it’d likely help. People with good experience and business skills will eventually squash those who fell into the slots as early adopters. That fair?
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Why would they, they would much rather make their own ship instead of trying to salvage a sinking one. I don't understand why anyone would jump into a broken system and try to fix it simply because they heard about it. Makes absolutely no sense, what makes sense is that once they know about the broken system they will ridicule and mock it, warning anyone against stepping into a huge pile of steemy shit.
"hey look at how horrible the state of this neighborhood is, let's buy in and put our reputation on the line by investing in it"
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and its a problem that can be easily remedied by simple moderation. Most Bots vote every 2.4 hours, they get maybe 3 to 6 posts to upvote each round. How hard can it be to quickly check out 30 to 60 posts a day?
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It's pretty hard, even if they would only remove votes when other people point out the most obvious problems. :)
I defended the model for a while, but people confused that with defending the current owners.
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What's the bidbot model again?
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Pay for visibility. You will find it on twitter, facebook, youtube and every where else.
We insist on thinking Crypto is a Special Snowflake with a unique model, but it isn't.
It does all the same things as money and holds all the same issues.
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So then what is the problem? You didn't specify pay for who's visibility, so why are you against some people buying it?
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Btw:
Numero Uno, we are talking about Rewards, not money.
I see no such thing as a reward pool in the world of money, ever, in the whole 10000 year history.
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Hey, what the heck is that in your mouth in your profile pic? A dagger?
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Hatchet
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Having consensus witnesses running a massive bot service seems a conflict of interest in my mind. The bid bot wolf has muted me, I have no problem calling him out. He is a sleezy politician well versed in double speak and I want him and his ilk out of the top 20. We shall see what him and others do after the fork. As for the others, I don’t know them, I also
Detest any steemian that feels they need to mute me, especially a consensus witness. Am I really that important or are they well aware their gravy train is destroying this ecosystem and any semblance of ethics. Quality is certainly not a concern, for that alone they should be outed and forced to explain how their greed is good for the platform.
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@tcpolymath made some excellent points about the state of the witnesses in this post which is well worth a read.
https://steemit.com/steem/@tcpolymath/three-paths-forward-for-steem
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Brilliant and resteemed, it’s fantasy but does illuminate the trappings of our lil brokechain.
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Speaking of wolves, I have a feeling that you're not one to be around during a full moon. Good point on the conflict of interest, but it's sort of what we're stuck with for now.
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Yes that’s the plate placed in front of us indeed, we also have plenty of division stemming from the reality that steem is simply many different things to many different people.
I just had someone rail into me for expressing these same views, and also telling me I’m a hypocrite and to F off etc. That’s the internet, and here we have career internet keyboard warriors that are probably off their rocker and distance themselves from the real world to contend with.
It’s a revolutionary concept and being that it involve monetizing social media we can expect turbulent times. We are still in the identifying what this experiment is phase and that process will possibly never have an end game.
Yes, howling at the moon 🌝 and essentially being a chameleon our in my nature. I’m easy going until I feel backed into a corner or provoked without provocation.
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Baaaah humbug. You've got your head on straight 99% of the time (leaving 1% because of the werewolf factor). Keep being the one to wave the flag at the ducks and let that herd of haters waddle around in their own muck.
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I appreciate that and I'll try, tho the hatchet mouths here test my patience. 🐑 bleating is the call of the wild..
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Yeah, when an outsider looks in they are like yeek
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More like Yeeaa...eeeekkk...
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Lol, yeah, that!
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I don't like them too..
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At this point I feel like it's hard to make a case that they aren't a net negative in regards to the long term success of Steem.
I get that they were an organic supply/demand market that popped up, but when something is at the macro scale bad for the system I think something should be done.
In this new age of layer two communities, if I were making one I would have a hard line BAN on bidbots, but having a huge flag account to stike down any use of them before anyone even got any ideas about launching one in my community. That's just me though.
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Off with their heads ! Definitely any consensus witness that makes thousands a month off their bots needs to be removed. I can’t wait to see the fallout from where steem is headed. Exciting times
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Perhaps they need the income to cover their witness costs, but I doubt that they’re that substantial when many also blog and there’s a lot of circle voting to keep their Steem streaming in.
Fiat or other crypto also works to pay witness costs, so...
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He makes thousands as a, top witness, he pulls in about 10k a month from all combined efforts. Running the node isn't more than a couple hundred at most. That's 100k + a year as a, steemian.. Only witnesses below 40 are running in the red at a loss.
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I cannot answer your question. Even.if I wanted to I do not know how to get rich by using bots.
I just noticed some content only get a comment from more as 1 bot.
I try to read and respond a lot. My content is clearly worse as shots of flowers or stones or... without a word text.🤔
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