Good or bad content paying to hit the trending page is BAD for Steemit. The bad content is a consequence of good content being able to pay to land on the trending page.
Organically landing on the trending page is the only way that is good for Steemit as this is EARNING your exposure. Paying for it is bad for Steemit and only focused on short-term gains.
No such thing as organically on steemit anymorebuddy , if you ain't paying for bots to go on trending then you are self voting or circle jerking your way up there.
And I think that is the most serious mistake this platform has made since it's inception.
The moment a single bot was used to vote, it killed the reputation and trust of the voting system and skewed the natural order of content feeds.
Even with bots reigning supreme at the moment, I plan to build my own reputation and followers organically without ever using a bot to speed up the process. This long-term view means I miss out on these bot-based short-term gains. But I'm hoping the long-term approach will have the longevity of a solid reputation.
Eventually, I do hope to land on the Trending page after earning my spot the old fashioned way but I don't expect to stay there for long. I'm fully aware that that is an ambitious plan and probably doomed to fail but at least I'll still have my interity along with the knowledge that I have EARNED my reputation without gaming the system. :-)
@richreeve so your suggestion not use bots?
@richreeve
now I understand the other side as well and why they don't read posts before downvoting and that because:
steemit community need to be educated not to use bots
and it doesn't matter what good content you have,
if people not educated it will never be stoped and all the steemanians will be used to fact that the trending page is only for money
I now understand that
My personal opinion is that all bots hurt Steemit - but this is an opinion based on the direction I would like to see Steemit go, others may have a different opinion than mine.
I would like everyone to focus on the long-term growth of the community as this will return gains with longevity for every current user rather than short-term gains for a few at the expense of everyone else including the community. (When I say at the expense of the community I mean, bots kills the organic nature of human votes )
If this happened, everyone would make MUCH MORE money for longer. Including the bot owners.
Do I think we should get rid of all bots? Not necessarily but as a rule, I think that any post which is using a bot for promotion should either be listed in its own feed, away from organic listings or at the very least, have a badge over the thumbnail image that made people aware it is a PROMOTED POST. This is actually the law in some countries I'm sure, where advertising must be clearly stated to consumers.
I would like to explain the biggest reasons why bots are hurting Steemit but rather than write it all again, I have already written a post that explains my argument in full: (Notice how not many people saw this post because I haven't earned the reputation or followers yet, nor did I pay a bot)
https://steemit.com/steemit/@richreeve/steemit-bots-are-a-serious-problem-that-threatens-our-community
@richreeve was emotional since I worked hard on that project and maybe I was complaining at first but thru reading the comments I now more educated
if I wasn't complaining I never learned that, so in my opinion, this is a good progress
and I think more people that got burned using bot votes need to put their emotions to the side and opened up to another side instead of looking at each other as a bully.
and I don't know if people that downvoted understand that but when just downvoting without a person understanding why it's just using force, the true power is when you educate that person and next time he will not use bots, not because of he afraid to get downvotes, but because now he understands why it's a bad thing for a community.
and I think it's a win/win situation and most importantly now that I more educated about that I will continue the footsteps and tried to educate other, don't you agree it's a good thing that came out of all these comments?
I totally agree.
I also think its such a shame because that content you created was very well done and I appreciated it. Don't let it go to waste though, all that hard work can still pay off with a bit of creative thinking which shouldn't be too difficult for someone like you.
Mark my words, if you continue to produce high quality content like that, it wont be that long until each and every post gets the exposure it deserves. Keep up the excellent work.