Here is my (ever evolving) prediction:
Steemians of influence big and small, will begin buying votes/promoting their posts using white list bid bots. The ones who check out people before they allow the vote to be bought.
If they delegate to these community white list bots they get an even bigger upvote, or they don't have to pay for each upvote. One or the other.
The "old way" of bidding will become uncool.
There will be a stigma attached to those that use the "old way"
Because we won't be spending our voting power fighting so much bid bot abuse, like the example of the post and poster above, we can spread our votes to those who are doing a great job in the community. Also we'll have a greater impact with our downvoting campaigns against people who do fucked up shit like this one in @overkillcoin's post.
You say it's not crossing any lines really. And you're keeping @buildawhale's vote there.
I disagree.
- It's in #introduceyourself. It's a 4 day old post but still in the top 4 of trending. It makes the platform look bad in general to have that up there, I mean, c'mon man...there are new users that see that shit.
I go through the new #introduceyourself posts at least a couple times a week to give support and upvotes. I'll tell you, there's been a huge decrease in the number of introductions, and not a lot of veteran Steemians going to say hi either.
When these new users see a post like that thing, being at the top, and they worked on their post so hard, photos of them...paragraph after paragraph of the story of their life and why they want to be a part of our blockchain...and their post ends up making like 3 cents before I found it.
Yet they see, if they can just do what ever that poster did, they can win big!
- That post wasn't even an introduction. That poster has been on for over a month, and used the tag already. They know how the system works and they are gaming it.
Keep the upvote there, or not. I actually am glad for this whole situation to unfold because it opened my eyes and really helped me define my values, goals and vision for where I want us to go.
What type of place the Steem blockchain will be.
I'm invested here. I care about our collective long term success. I'm in it for the long haul.