Over the past week or two, I've read several posts that were talking about voting bots in general, and the possible ethics of having them and using them. At least one post talked about large stake holders selling their votes rather than doing manual curation, and how they make more sbd from just selling their votes. I also saw some talk about this in a discord chat. I found the discussions, and especially the chat discussion to be quite interesting, and a bit of a disappointment at the same time.
The fact that someone with a lot of SP would rather sell their votes with a bot of one kind or another than manually curate tells me a couple of things. One, they're mostly just interested in making money, and another, they don't care much about the content of the posts that their bot upvotes. Original content isn't important to most voting bots, nor is effort involved in the post. A meme with 2 lines of text will often make a lot more than a well thought out post about some subject. Of course, that's only partly the fault of the bots, what most people upvote often leaves me wondering what people upvote, and why.
This subject leaves me a bit disillusioned about steemit. It's probably mostly my fault for thinking that this website was much different than any other website where people write and post stuff. Sure, this website is almost unique in that it pays people for what they write, based on other people liking the post, and most of the people who use the platform make a little bit of crypto. But let's face it, this website is just another money generating platform, and the lion's share of it goes to the large stakeholders. This website is built on the capitalistic notion of greed. If you have a lot of money to invest in steem, you actually don't have to do much at all here to make a good return, just sell your upvotes.
I guess that I was perhaps expecting something different from steemit, a place that was more about involvement and interaction than just about money. Perhaps I expected too much. I see a lot more involvement and interaction on the PAL group on discord than I ever see here on steemit. Perhaps that's because it's not driven by money, but rather by community.
So, what do I want to do because of these trends that I see on steemit? Not much, I guess. It is what it is, not what we might want it to be. The vote bots continue, and I use a couple of them. Why not, everyone else is using them. It seems the only way to generate any crypto for some people on steemit, and it usually adds a few cent's of crypto to the value of my posts.
There's plagiarism, copy-paste posts, lots of accounts that are created specifically to upvote a person's posts, and I'm sure there's other ways to mine steem in unethical ways, but that's what happens when it's about money.
In the mean time, I'm just going to keep on doing what I've been doing on steemit, making posts, hoping some people like them, hoping some people upvote them, and using the upvote bots that I've been using.
To me, this is as much a place with an audience as it is a money making platform. I have no way at this time to turn steem into U.S. dollars, so it's not like I'm here for the money. The primary reason that I hope for large votes is because I turn most of the post rewards into SP to give me more voting power for my curation efforts. Untill the last month or so, I didn't have enough SBD to buy any votes. I had my posts set at 100% power up. I go back and forth between 50/50 and 100% now just so that I will have a couple of SBD for the vote bid bot that I use.
I have accumulated 800 SP of my own now, all of it earned through my posts. I figure that's pretty good considering that I've only been on steemit since the beginning of May of this year, a bit more than 6 months at this point. I don't see myself investing any U.S. dollars into steem any time soon for 2 reasons, I live on social security which doesn't go all that far, and I have no way to convert U.S. dollars to crypto to trade for steem. I guess I'm not in any danger of making dolphin status any time soon. Right now, my full 100% vote is worth about 8 cents. It ain't much, but it's a lot more than when I started.
My curation efforts are not along specific tags, they're more random, I never quite know what I'm going to be interested in when I log on to steemit. It mostly depends on what I find interesting that evening. I upvote what I find interesting, as long as it's not what I consider low quality posting just to get votes. I tend to mostly curate the people that I'm following, but sometimes I'll look at resteems if they get my attention. I don't have the time or SP to cruise the "new" listings or the "trending" listings looking for things to curate, I'm usually only on the computer in the evening, and this computer is my only link to the internet.
If you've made it this far on this post, thank you for reading the entire post! I really appreciate that.
Feel free to leave a comment or a question if you would like, I'm all for interaction on this platform.
Heep on steeming on!
I've generally been disappointed with a lot of the content on here. It feels like we're generally getting to the point where everything is both written by and for consumption by bots.
That's the primary reason that I tend to follow people who write posts on subjects that I'm interested in and who write for people to read. Very rarely does a meme post get a vote from me.
So cruel! Quitter! Hater! What is wrong with you?
Didn't you get Ned's memo?
"Steemit is great... And .........!!!! .....SMT's!!!"
Well.... When you want USD for your Steem....let me know. I'll write you a check. Just msg me in Discord! XD ;-P
I'll remember that! I don't have much SBD to trade right now though...
The current system, is based on humans upvoting quality content. Allowing bots to randomly upvote likely muddies the pool, so to speak. To me, the solution would seem to be to train an AI to recognize when people are giving random upvotes, and give them a lower return. The bonus would be that you could also give a bit of extra weight to quality curators.
Why no way to turn SBD into USD?
I have twice traded SBD for Bitcoin on one platform, and then traded the Bitcoin for USD on a different platform (the middle man being necessary because I don't know one platform that will do both). The USD was transferred to my bank.
Or are you afraid that having the extra income will count as "too much" and mess up your SSI?
I'm not worried about the extra income, it wouldn't be enough to make a difference.
I just don't have an account on a platform where I can make those trades.
I have seen a lot of these posts also lately.
And I have to agree with your statement here. When I scroll through and read posts I like substance, unique things and clear explanations. I don't willy-nilly my UPvotes or comments.
That's why I'm honored to be read and followed by people like yourself!
Another quality post. Maybe this one can be spread around a little!
I made it to the end, but only because it was such a true and interesting piece! I haven't quite figured out how to convert to cash either, but have started to experiment. In the meantime, I actually like to read the things I vote on lol. Have a great day!
Yes I've read those same posts. Made me despair 😞
I just keep doing what I keep doing because I enjoy doing it.
When I stop enjoying doing it, I will stop doing it.
Yes same here. I am thoroughly enjoying my time on steemit.
I love posting, commenting and learning new homesteading and gardening ideas. Such a plethora of information I read daily.
I can't believe people sell their votes and at the same time can sadly completely believe it. It's all about making the most money possible for some people.
I think you are doing a wonderful job and have deserved all 800 SP, here's to much more to come.
Thank you! I appreciate that!
You are speaking my mind all along in your post - except I have not used the upvote bots - I just so not see any sence in them. Why should I do something here on Steemit that I - from the very, very bottom of my heard - would not do in the real world... I find myself drawn back and forth between staying here or moving out... Made a deal with myself to stay here until end of this year and to keep up my posts and to see what happens along the way... just some days ago I got upvoted from the OCD project and it felt like YAY, I am not the only one wondering about the buying upvotes - @OCD is an outstanding project here on steemit and I hope there will be more of this kind! I am trying to involve myself in the positive aspects here - like #popcontest, #hobbyhub or #freewrite... Cheers from the Seven Mountains in Germany
Do not despair!
I'm working on a post concerning the identification of abusive bots.
Hopefully this will provide some ingenious person a way to identify and flag bots.
While not a perfect solution, it may help to reduce the profotability of automatic bots.
here's the post!
https://steemit.com/steemit/@torquewrench1969/tips-i-use-to-identify-bot-accounts
Oh the irony
I know, right? I signed up for this one because everybody need a little help on here.
This vote bot only gives out 1 vote per person per day, so you can't get multiple votes from it by dropping a bunch of shit posts on your page. At least there is that.
The difference with Qurator is we manually approve our members and pick a few to curate on a daily basis. Thus, we strive to keep our little community shit post free. We have kicked members out before, they posted great content and then posted with little to no effort and just buying upvotes. They lost our support. We try our best to keep our little community free from spam posters.
I do appreciate the way the Qurator bot works! It helps those of us who try to put some effort into our posts.
Yeah, there are definitely upsides and downsides to bots. For people starting out stuff like this is super useful to help power up.
Especially if you can't afford to imvest in some steem to power up. If you have to earn all your SP, you need all the help you can get.
Resteem your post to 2000+ followers for only 0.5 SBD or Steem)
Just send 0.5 SBD or steem to @steemvote (URL as memo)
New Followers get 0.001 SBD$ and an upvote for free!!
Just follow @steemvote and...
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Quality post @amberyooper