Since having been offered to "Purchase a Witness Vote" from one of the Witnesses/Proxy/Whales out there, I have had a lot of my thoughts concentrated on this topic.
Even had a few conversations with fellow Steemians, some of whom are fellow Witnesses.
@gtg forwarded me a link to a post by @anyx in which the mathematics of it all is detailed out and proves that at the end of the day it doesn't end well for anyone of us Steemians, no matter if we are buyers or sellers!
Note: link is listed at the bottom of this post
After reading this post, three times over, trying to get all the number crunching straight, as it does go into a lot of detail, my conclusions are fairly clear.
a) The current code allows for this to be possible.
Hence, there is nothing stopping anyone from doing this. So if anyone wants to try it, do it, they can. It really is as simple as that.
b) The market, being us Steemians shall decide as individuals upon this. It always comes down to the person. Shall a potential customer buy/sell/proxy their vote for a sum of money?
I dare say that some shall. Some won't.
c) Apparently something similar has been attempted and even to a certain extent been put into place by a former Witness and in the long run it failed.
Yes it did get that Witness into the Top20 for a while, but again, that fame and glory was short lived, for whatever reasons. That persons failure to remain in the Top20 had little to nothing to do with their alleged "business" (financial) approach to getting votes.
So, I do ask myself, How effective is this and how safe is out voting system?
Personally, I again state how one of the key factors here is what lately has been referred to as "decaying votes", by which each persons vote is valid for a fixed term from the date that the vote is cast.
i.e. 12 months. after which that vote is reset.
This would definitely add a kink to the system as many of the ex users who are no longer with us shall not have any influence upon our governance on Steem.
Although it wouldn't "prevent" anyone from selling their vote it would mean that all those accounts we see sitting at level 25 and for whom we presume are owned by certain people shall most likely cast their new votes in a fashion that makes is very clear as to who owns what account! The Blockchain NEVER lies!
This would give the community added information upon which to make sound decisions upon.
Just as one example of how a potential source of information could add more power to the people.
Remember: "Information = POWER".
In a few of the conversations that I had the never ending topic of alleged "Vote trading" came up.
I will copy paste an answer I gave in one of these conversations and the reply to it, from one of the highest ranking witnesses we have. I believe this answer should sum it all up:
As far as vote trading goes, again, a vote is a vote and every person votes for their own reasons and with their own logic.
No matter how we look at it, nobody can "force" anyone to vote or not vote for someone if they don't want to, so what some call trading is in fact just a flow of information, in this case the information being how much MV a vote is worth and then if that person considers this to be an important factor at that moment in their campaign they have that information upon which to make THEIR OWN decision.
I've thought about that topic long and hard.
at the end of the day we all vote for different people out of different reasons.
i.e. a vote "trade" may not be in any way influenced by MV, it could be motivated by friendship, affiliations and a countless list of reasons.
So the topic called "vote trading" is in fact a dead topic to me, as it is totally subjective.
At the end of the day each person has their own reasons (reasoning) for their decisions.
ANSWER:
Agreed.
So, what can we do about "Vote selling" for good old "Greenbacks"?
Not much, except act in accordance with what we as individuals believe is right and best for everyone.
Some may decide to go the other route and choose to take on this type of offer and exclusively go by what they believe shall get them some added $$$$$$.
To all those I highly recommend that they read the detailed summary written by @anyx (link below).
Life may not be "black and white" and this may have come about as a "reaction" to the events that lead up to it. It may have been planned out all along, as it is pretty much using the same economical model used by the so called "bid bots".
Who knows, time may or may not tell!
Here are the relevant links that lead up to this post:
How Vote Incentivization Degrades Delegated Proof of Stake by @ anyx
Paying For A Witness Vote. The "Offer" and My Reply.
Paying For A Witness Vote. Looking At Things From Another Angle!
I hope you take the time to read these posts & really think over it all. After all our Witness Votes, each and every one MATTERS, no matter how much Steem we have in invested in Steem Power, or in private wallets somewhere, ALL of our Steem is at stake here.
Appreciate your time and as I have often said "Think about it"
Yours truly
It's a crap idea all around. It's not sustainable and it always backfires. There's been a few who wanted favors, barter, money for their vote and shit just not happening. These aren't the biggest investors and their votes with the witness page listing 100 are worthless. Jumping into the top 50 used to be worth something for that page alone to fool the name voters (those who vote on witnesses because they like the sound of their name). Not anymore.
Yeah it has the potential to mess up the blockchain just like if everyone colluded they could mess up the blockchain. They won't do it. There's too much to lose including their own investment of time and money. That time is worth more than money. The ones that get somewhere on pure shit are oddities and there's typically more value than just renting a vote at play.
Its also impractical in the long run. Top 20 are expected to have some serious projects going since there's a whole lot of different investors voting for them. Those aren't cheap. Coders, support team, servers, advertising, all the giveaways and donations and all those test servers no one ever sees and all those hours you got to take off work if you work. That adds up. Going to take the remaining profits and buy a boost that you can get elsewhere for free? For all of five minutes until the calculator comes out.
Buying votes will wipe you out and selling votes will just kill your other projects if you're a seller and not a witness yourself. No one is curating the blog of a known dirtbag unless it's with flags. Then there's plenty of that type of curation. Everyone knows who the sellers are and their votes are worthless. I can name three just off the top of my head and that's without looking back at all of those who offered in various dm's.
And look at it this way: If I make 200 SP from my witness today, I get my 200 SP. I have to power that down. That's a 13 week cycle. I'm not getting all of it at once and in 1 week, not to mention in 13 weeks, everything can tank. I'd be paying the current rate now for my hamburger on Tuesday. Except that now STEEM may be worth let's say $3 and on Tuesday or whenever the hell I power down it could be $0.75. I'd have better luck stacking bid bots.
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This is true Jack, and a human's freewill lets them steal or even kill but neither act is right nor moral.
I applaud you for speaking out on this matter.
To me, extorting someone to pay up in order to receive a large vote is wrong. Either you earned it or you didn't. Adding injury to insult is the whole idea that having submitted to the extortion of paying for a vote, the witness then needs to continue to pay the extortionist through royalties on the increased income earned from the rise in position.
There is only one way for a scheme like this to succeed. That is for there to be an actual market. That market is witnesses willing to pay and their voters who don't see the extortion and the paying to be wrong.
So, while there are no rules to stop the scheme or the market from forming, the community can drive the result through how they accept or reject the practice.
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The post from @anyx literally defines it!
The potential market will = 0 at the end of the day as the potential "profits" = $0.
But, we'll see, I have said my piece on it and that is that.
PS.
Practically none of the people I spoke with seem "worried" about this 1 million SP witness/proxy/whale, so literally, after sleeping on it all, it does come down to the maths and the community members.
Thought I needed to add this in, to make sure it is in here for the record.
If we want Steem to grow we will use our votes as votes and not as profit making machines.
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All he needed to do was stay away from the camera!
Well Jack, this subject has clearly been on your mind, so much so you've managed (a record?) 3 posts in 3 days on this subject alone!
Bribery, extortion, lies, theft, it's been here since day one, and unlikely to vanish anytime soon. This is why I set out witness stall our for the beginning - we support this, we don't support that, and I've not been subject to any of the above thus far.
I see you + @millers are almost at your target 10k. Does this mean I can move my witness vote for you onto another needing a boost? :P
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10K less the amount earned from my witness server, as that money goes to charity, it's not ours. But we are not far from or goal. Soon.
Especially if I keep posting like crazy!
:)
PS. As I wrote above in my answer to a top20, your vote, do as you wish, it's yours.
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I totally agree with you @jackmiller and I thought I had you on my witness list from long ago but I checked and it was not there so I corrected my mistake. I personally like to support community-oriented witnesses like what you are, and like @steemcommunity , @comedyopenmic , @curie and people who are genuinly trying to keep steemit afloat. They are not just using steemit as a personal piggy bank to shake all the change out of the hole in the bottom then toss it aside and move onto the next place they can suck the life out of. I would personally love to see some of these communities come togeather and help each other do some cross promotions to help bring viewers in that they may not normally have. I was thinking about this just last night. I have no stake in promoting anyone but I do have a stake in how I would like to see steemit ran and who I would like to see at the top of the witness list and I can assure you it is people like you and the others I listed that have MY best intrests at heart as a steemit user. I was thinking of putting on a promotional post using my own money to bring awareness to people that I think are worthy of being a top 20 witness and I would be happy to throw your name in there if it is ok with you. I am not sure what people are ok with though. I do not want it to be a "buying votes" post but maybe buy some packs of @steemmonsters and @dustsweeper or @steembasicincome to give away as prizes to kinda bring in attention to witnesses that have our best inrests at heart. Does that sound like a good or am I way out in left field here?
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Mate, it's your account, your blog, your wall!
The thing I have always been yelling out is "DON'T ASK PERMISSION TO BE YOURSELF, BE YOURSELF"
If you think that something you can do is worth doing, then do it!
All jokes and puns aside, as I usually do kid around, here I am totally serious when I say that.
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The funny thing is my discord DM's are a 50/50 mix of STOP BEING YOU!!! and ....... keep it up man, you are doing great being you.
I ussually delete the stop being you ones, or at least mess with them for a bit first. :)
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yes , the fire is started
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Interesting read, lets all hope we can get enough organic votes to get reliable witnesses in the top. Vote added 😁
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