I'm glad this post was brought to my attention. There's a lot of stuff I've seen before here, but quite a bit of new stuff, too. I had not heard of the Mayweather situation.
I'd have to read over it half a dozen times to go through a point by point response, neither of which I'm particularly inclined to do, although I would enjoy further discussion on the topic.
The Ponzi section in particular struck a chord for me, as I've never really disputed it has a lot of qualifiers, but a point that sticks in my head is the fact that these cards have a value beyond monetary as long as the game is running, or another app that uses them is still out there.
Other than that, you hit on some very concerning points. I hope however bleak things are there's still a future here.
For context, I got here about 2 weeks before battles began. I've seen all the changes, some of which hit me like a ton of bricks, making me think I might just be finished with it, while others made up for whatever bugged me and more. I was mad as hell to find out affiliate rewards were going to stop being paid in Hive, and I wasn't thrilled when they stopped giving out DEC for SP delegations, but it wasn't a deal breaker or anything.
I used to despise bots, feeling they gave an unfair advantage to game play, without really thinking much about the economic impact. I mean, hell, it's just an experimental card game. But, then, I noticed I wasn't waiting endlessly to get matched up with an opponent anymore. Then I realized bots challenge me in ways humans had not, and inspired me to experiment with strategies I hadn't thought of before that contrast. Finally, I started using a bot service to supplement my activity when I needed to step away.
For a while, I ran a tiny bot farm of 2 accounts while playing my main, before handing it off, too, for the end of the last bull run. Not I use one only on my main account and play it incrementally... usually binging every other day or so.
I say all that to say this. I appreciate the bot service so I don't have to feel married to the game to get my dailies in, but I would like to see the game reach some kind of equilibrium that would allow me to keep my status without needing a bot to stand in for me. I guess I mean I'm not opposed to bots, so much as bot farms, and I wouldn't mind those if they didn't bring the host of problems that have been kicked around here for years.
I don't have answers. I doubt I'm even fully aware of what the real questions are, but I'm hopeful things will get sorted out. Despite its apparently numerous issues, this is still a revolutionary experiment, that I'm hopeful will have tremendous impacts down the line.
Sadly it's an issue of transparency at the very least. As you can see in what I've written I have a nuanced view about bots that has changed over the years and can understand your perspective despite never having run a bot myself. Thanks for commenting by the way! You actually have won the delegation when I ran the wheel of names, so pick your card and you can use it for a season. Congratz. Cheers mate, thanks for coming out. I truly appreciate it. !PIZZA
You have a lot of really solid points. My issue with most of them is they point out the gray areas here, and rightfully so, but without an acknowledgement that figuring all this stuff out is a key part of this particular kind of experimentation. Everything you spoke of regarding regulators digging around is VERY VALID, but at some point we do want them sniffing around and attacking us where we seem weak. That's what this entire space is designed for. My concern is whether or not we can survive such a situation or if we've just been blowing smoke this whole time.
!PIZZA