I don't like the statement "Bots need data, minnows generate data."
So that is all us minnows are good for in the curation process?!?
Puts a somewhat ugly spin on things. Not sure that would look as good on the Steemit promotion advertising. "...Join Steemit and vote on good content so Whale Bots can use you as a data point to make them money"
There must be a better way.
It isn't even clear that once the market is competitive whale bots will make a lot of money. You can think of whale bots, in a decentralized system, as simply being an algorithm that picks out content that is becoming popular and suddenly launches it to greater visibility (and likely earnings). On a centralized system such as Twitter, there is an algorithm that picks out trending tags. As soon as such a tag appears in the list, it will certainly be searched and used a lot more, launching its popularity beyond where it was when the algorithm first picked it up. Whale bots are doing the exact same thing, just decentralized.
My point is that the whales are doing this important task using the effort of minnows, who are not being rewarded. Think of it this way: minnow are the unpaid slaves working to help the whales pick out good content and earn rewards. Sure the whales provide a service, but where is the fairness if minnows get nothing? Ultimately, the minnows will stop. That would be the downfall of Steemit.
The system must be adjusted to provide minnows rewards for their good deeds and dedicated efforts in supporting the overall ecosystem.