For the last couple of weeks, I have been conducting some very scientific tests on steemit. VERY scientific. The first week I wrote a post and asked for human commenters. I upvoted it myself. I mentioned human commenters... YOU are the bread and butter of this test. Please leave a comment in a human way to help me find out if I am a genius or a common thief and bringer of the apocalypse.
Here are the results from week #1: (https://steemit.com/steem/@allcapsonezero/testing-testing-is-this-thing-even-on)
upvotes: 13
human readers: 4
payout meter: 0.81
actual rewards: 0.011 STEEM, 0.352 SBD and 0.191 STEEM POWER
Week 2 (https://steemit.com/steem/@allcapsonezero/testing-testing-is-this-thing-even-on-part-2-vote-bots-in-play) is a little more grey area-i-er. I used 20 SBD on 4 vote bots to 'promote' the post. I have used vote bots before. Lots. I always thought it got me noticed. I decided to test it against my week 1 post. Here are the results:
upvotes: 16
human readers: 6
payout meter: $51.29
actual rewards: 19.705 SBD and 6.653 STEEM POWER
I paid 20 SBD so: I made approximately 6.4 STEEM POWER (ish... don't make me do all of that math)
Grey area-i-er?
Yes, good question. I had 6 human commenters and one robot who creates audio versions of posts. Of the 6 commenters, 2 of them read the post before the big robot threw down the big bucks. That makes it pretty much even. To make matters even more grey, the post-vote-bot humans are regulars. We are aware of each other already. We talk. We upvote. We comment. In one instance, we talk face to face. I also got a comment from @trasparencybot 's doctor/creator/human sponsor. I kind of invited him to my post and as such, him commenting had nothing to do with vote bot usage.
My conclusion is therefore not really too conclusive on one hand, and super conclusive on the other. It looks to me like spending 20 SBD on bid bots did nothing really for my visibility (super conclusive). I can't really conclude that using vote bots does not increase visibility if a post makes it onto the trending or hot page, but in order to test that, I would need to spend more SBD. (Which I will do at some point).
One thing I can conclude on is this. If you want to create Steem Power for your wallet. Using vote bots is a very lucrative practice. I spent 20 SBD and got 19.705 SBD returned to me as well as 6.653 Steem Power. I could spend that 19.7 SBD again and create a perpetual Steem Power generator (see what I did there? Pun-tacular). At the current price of Steem, my second post paid me somewhere in the ballpark (this is crypto, this number is not going to be consistent over the week that this post is relevant) of $20 USD. Compared to week 1's approximate $1.65.
That is not professional writer pay, but it is not too shabby for 45 minutes of "effort"... I am speaking of week 2's results.
What does all of this mean?
Well, spending 20 SBD on vote bots did not make me more visible. It did make me more money. So, I guess I cannot claim that I am using vote bots for visibility anymore (at least at the 20 SBD level). So... if you catch me paying a vote bot 20 SBD... ... I'm mining steem power.
Nice segue.
We can talk about armaged-steem. (I just made up that word). It is a term for the greed induced downfall of this platform. It could be a microcosm of the coming actual armageddon, which would be the greed induced downfall of our civilization (which could happen a few years after steemit goes down).
Is "mining" steem bad? If I knowingly pay 20 SBD to vote bots knowing that they don't do anything for me except pay me better, am I killing steemit? If a whale does the same thing by upvoting his post because he wants to get paid... is he killing steemit? Is this, what some people say, what people are choosing to do with their stake? These are the questions we need to be asking. Do we care? Is this a grab all you can and convert it to BTC while the getting is good party or is this a sustainable make some friends that last a lifetime sort of party?
Can it be both?
I am actually asking you these questions. I NEED YOU TO COMMENT IN A HUMAN WAY so that I can continue my research
Week 3's test: Resteem services.
OK, so 20 SBD on vote bots didn't do too much for my budding professional writer's career by increasing my readership, but it did pay me ok. How about these resteem services?
What I am going to do this week is pay some resteem services to get my writing out there. I don't have a lot of faith in them because they just churn out articles on their feed every day... all day. I wouldn't trust their judgement. You can't think someone who tells you to watch a movie because they got paid to recommend it has good taste in movies. Can you?
Wellllll.... that question is essentially what this weeks test is going to answer. Does anybody actually follow a resteem services suggestion?
The rules. I am writing this article just like the last few weeks. Bare bones, no picture, 45 minutes of "effort". I am going to upvote it, just like the last 2 weeks. I want to have all variables the same except for the one we are testing. This is science, not just some dude in his underwear typing on a computer. Science.
So, please comment. You are the most important part of this experiment. I can get a million robot votes. They don't matter like you few humans on steemit. I need to know if you saw this. I need you to let me know you read it. I need to hear your thoughts on if using vote bots will bring the end of steemit and if so, is it a bad thing?
I will use no vote bots, only resteem services.
See you all in a week with the results!!!
That is a nice experiment. There are sites which are analyzing the resteem services but they can only tell you the number of active followers of these services (and the numbers are not that big haha). So it's cool to see live results.
I found your post for example because I looked at some resteem services in case that I use one of them in the future.
You invested 5.7SBD for the resteems and atm you got upvotes for 3.82$. Can't wait to see the results after 7 days.
So you got a human upvote from me ;-)
Thank you! It is also worth noting that my largest upvote is not from a resteem service. It is from a person who sometimes upvotes my content and likely represents half of my total. So, from the resteem services, I likely got back 1.75 - 2.00 in upvotes.
I will continue to conduct these tests. I am enjoying the results and the responses I am getting thus far.
Thanks for helping with them!
Unless the founders care enough for the Steemit community to stay, this platform will become just another business. As one of them stated in some steemit fest, 'it's only business'. I guess vote bots are good for making money temporarily.
The money has to stay valuable. I could 'mine' steem with vote bots until the cows came home. If the content is crap and everyone is mining steem... I don't see steem being worth too much. It is too easy to acquire.
I have read parts of the SMT whitepaper and I think that is the future of steem unfortunately. Steem is to be turned into the "advertising blockchain" where people pay to get seen (aka the trending page).
Not a surprise!
Sigh, poor me who cannot pay to get seen lol.
You are steem loaded. Not like super rich... but kinda ballin'. Punk kid rich - enough money to have a slurpee and gas in the car.
That's all we need.
true
"if I am a genius or a common thief and bringer of the apocalypse."
Indeed which one are you? :)
Intriguing test and results. What made you conduct this test?
I guess I could be all of the above. If I buy upvotes, am I stealing? If my stealing causes steemit to fail, did I bring about the apocalypse (of steem)? Or, do I ask too many questions because I am a genius?
I am just really curious is vote bots and resteem services are worth using... and if so, under what conditions?
So, I figured I would make an experiment out of it. Last week, vote bots... this week resteems... next week, hot or trending page.
"I am just really curious is vote bots and resteem services are worth using... and if so, under what conditions?"
Im engaged in social media for 2 years already and the truth is that bots are part of steem value and value of entire social media platform.
The truth is that bots are quite accepted here and it's pointless to discuss if they are good or bad. They are here to stay and we have 3 options:
I like your experiment. The problem is that you took very little probes. Myself I used bots on 6 posts before I could come to any conclusion. Because you need to average your results. One time you may have 2-4 comments from humans, and very next day same post could bring 1-2 or 5-6. And that's a huge difference
take care mate
Totally. That is why the results are not very conclusive (aka more testing required). The only conclusive result is the fact that I made way better money using vote bots.
If I let you in on a little secret, I am just doing these tests as a way to talk to people about the steem ecosystem.
I like vote bots because it makes me able to pay to have whale voting power. If there were no vote bots, I would have to hope that a whale likes me a lot (and sees me posting) in order for any success. The bottom line is that if there were no vote bots, the whales would make all the money and decide who amongst the peons would get to eat.
Im going to write a little post about bots soon and I will definetly be quoting you a lot :)
EXACLY!
ya. even playing field. I pay each time for a vote because I lack the steem power.
I've heard lately that if someone else is paying for bot then it affect reputation much better than if you pay to upvote your own posts
have you heard anything about it mate?
Am not sure of the restreem serviçes have never used them before . bidbots are really a good way to obtain steempower.
Yeah, they work like a charm for obtaining steempower... but didn't do much for my visibility. Resteems so far have just given me a million tiny (likely robot) upvotes. We shall see what they do for visibility. Thank you!
Fantastic post been trying to notice the same actually. I did notice on my last two my visibility went through the roof, but it's only above the 20SBD level and taking a -10% ROI at least SBD to use resteem bots as well and those bring no money obviously.
And yeah using bidbots is essentially only to mine SP.
Thank you for your comment. So far the resteem services have brought a TON of tiny upvotes. Not much in payout. I do have some traffic in here though... so maybe some decent publicity? Next week I will try to get a hot or a trending post and see what that does. Thanks again!
Ok I was pretty skeptical at first, but the post I up voted with 3 SBD got me 3.8 SBD and 1.5 SP. Upvoting seems to give back your investment in SBD and let's you gain SP. Why not do this full time then? I guess if Steem price drops in the 7 days after you buy up votes you'd lose value. I'm extremely curious about this. I can't wait to see how upvoting to trending will work for you.
I expect to be flagged because there are a lot of crusaders fighting for the purity of manual curation. I appreciate that fight and am alright with there being flaggers. There needs to be flaggers when you can write garbage and spend $500 on vote bots. It will be an interesting test though.
And yes... vote bots don't guarantee you to profit. They do seem like a better way to use your SBD than trading it for BTC or straight up for steem from an investors perspective.
Good job!
I can't wait for the results to your research @allcapsonezero.... I do think that vote bots Only help to generate more steem power!
I think that is the best use for them. I think that if you get onto the trending list or the hot list you might get more views. That will be the next test.
Thank you for your comment and taking part in this valuable research ;)
I have my own approach to this issue. - I am a supporter of mining by any means that allows you to implement the program code, including botnets, automation of writing posts like "delirium" consisting of words, taken arbitrarily from the dictionary, etc. White Paper does not prohibit it either - the content is unique, albeit delusional. But the problem is that there are "adepts of quality content" standing guard here, they quickly find all such posts and downvote them.
The only thing I do not like is when we interrupt each other's bids on bid-bots. Greedy owners of bots want us to fight for their vote and carry more money, they do not care whether we earn or not, and we happily bite each other's throats.
And the so-called "stealing money from the pool," I do not consider it a theft, but I consider fair distribution of payments.
More details I wrote about this 2 weeks ago in my post "Cry of the soul, quality content, or how we are turned into slaves."
But this is my personal opinion, because I came to this site only for money and I do not care about the content and everything else.
I appreciate the honesty. I think a lot of people are here for your exact reason but are not brave enough to admit it.
It's not about honesty. The fact is that the linear system of payments on this site is built in such a way that it destroys any motivation to upvoting posts (even good and high-quality ones). With a linear system, the most profitable monetization of STEEM POWER is the upvoting of one's own posts and comments. That is why, it is almost impossible for an honest author to get an honest reward, even if he writed a post with a recipe of the real and really working elixir of eternal life. Because all whale upvoting is divided according to the agreements (and those that are not divided - are sold at predatory prices).
At first I tried to write (and even bought from professional journalists) good and qualitative articles, published them and .... received 0.002 SBD payments. thus losing a certain amount of money, just spat and turned her blog into a personal diary for her notes. Now I'm writing about what I want and do not care which, whether someone likes it or not. And I get upvotes by other way.
It is still very honest and I appreciate it. If one wants to get paid on steem... there is a formula to it plain and simple.
I will gladly read it if you share it with me, but if this formula does not imply fraud or serious investments, I'm not sure that it will work. I'm here not the first day, I tried many different schemes and very well studied the entire local "kitchen".
I've been experimenting in a similar way. Why believe what this person says, or that person...
Conduct your own experiment and see what happens.
My experiment isn't yet over, so I can neither recommend nor condemn anything.
As for the resteem services, I don't think those tiny upvotes you mention all stem from regular users, it's more like a cocktail (mixed ingredients).
For instance, in some cases, I could observe how the usernames of the upvoters go from A to Z, literally, then, after that, come some organic users... with their upvotes and/or comments.
So, it would actually not seem to be that much more visibility. Not everything that shines is gold, and all that...
Ya, I am pretty sure 97% or all of my upvotes are programmed voters tied in with the resteem service. It looks good that I got 213 votes, but the bulk of them are fractions of a penny and represent nothing more than a programmed vote. This is why I want human commenters. They represent something much more real. I am not in this just for the money (but it is nice), I want to write stuff that gets read by people. I want to see if there is a point to my effort and how to best reach an actual physical audience. Thank you for commenting and helping me figure out some stuff here.
This post arrives just in time. I planned to have my posts resteem in the next few day. I was only thinking about how to do this the best way.
I'll wait for your test.
byresteem gave me the biggest upvote, but also charged me the most.
hugewhale was cheaper and gave me the second biggest upvote.
You don't get your money back, but it does appear you get a lot of views.
no prob
it's me again
"if a post makes it onto the trending or hot page, but in order to test that, I would need to spend more SBD. (Which I will do at some point)."
getting to trening page can attract attention of whales which can flag you if they will decide that you do not deserve to be in trending. I think it's not advaisable to get into trending if one doesnt have huge amount of SP (so flagging would not affect him)
Ya, I assume I am going to get some negative attention by spending more SBD on votes. I will put my 'hard earned' SBD on the line for some conclusive results. Thanks again!
I want to get ("-")
I think that is a picture of a face looking or "seeing"? You want to be seen?
I want to be launched by such a great person
I hope you get launched by the greatest person
5.7 SBD on 6 resteem services
https://steemit.com/vn-newbie/@lizbonbon/hi-this-is-queen-snail
Testing your humanity. Are you alive?
Wow dear what a nice content...you are good content manager..keep it up my dear....
thank you