I dont think that the bots themselves are the issue but I think it is peoples greed when they realise they can just pay for votes and get to the trending page by posting anything, as you said a pic of food getting $50 is a joke.
I spend time writing articles and have used bots from time to time to boost my exposure and help to get more recognition. I think using them sparingly and with good content is ok.
Steemit needs the 'bot police'.
I think because the trending page is the first thing people see when they are new and they think hey I can write better than that maybe I could make $500 per post. Articles like this are not helping:
https://cryptorecorder.com/2018/04/03/how-to-earn-thousands-of-steem-dollars-sbd/amp/
Thats why so many people come and go - they think it will be easy but it does take time and effort.
I believe in the future of Steem, but as you say it has problems which need fixing or something better might just come along
Nice 👍
Judicious use of bots was perhaps the initial intention - guaranteeing visibility for content that you're particularly proud of or think worthy of others benefitting from.
As with everything else, greed came in and ruined it...
I love your idea regarding limiting bot use.
Instead of people monitoring it (value is SO subjective), perhaps limiting use of bots to just twice a week, where you only get to 'maximally expose' two of your posts per week, thus (hopefully) keeping only quality content on the trending pages.
I've seen a lot of crap posts making lots of money (all posted by the same person) and I get sick of repeatedly seeing their name posting nonsense and I leave in disgust.
I think we need a lot more professional witnesses on here to promote posts they think have value.
That was easy in the beginning; now with the number of daily posts so much higher, are there any professional witnesses out there being paid in Steem to constantly watch the Steemit feeds to upvote great stuff?
@ned, are you hiring?
If so, I'm interested!
There we are at SteemFest², let me know brother!
Yeah would hope that bot werent created with a more malicious intent. I guess its hard t create something with good intentions and predict they are going to be used they they are now!
I LOVE the idea of limiting the bot use to a couple of times a week (Maybe there should be a value aswell on how much you can spend per week on bots). This owuld make for a much more even and fair playing field and would be alot more encouraging for minnows. Surely this would be easy enough to implement. The hard part is convincing people it is a good idea.
I wrote an article with my ideas just the other day, where I suggest they change the layout of Steemit to include a 'organic' trending page:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@conradt/make-the-trending-page-great-again-organic-trending
Yea I dont name names on here but it does often seem the same people who post average quality (at best!) and get massive rewards. This is just taking advantage of the system for me, and isnt really helping with the long term growth of Steemit! Im sure some of these same people upvote their own comments to further boost their account - not cool!
Yeah I agree about the witnesses, we need people working full time to monitor the quality of posts on here - but wasnt that the idea of everyone working on 'quality control' by being offered curation rewards and thus having incentive to look for and upvote quality content? Have we moved away from the core design of Steem in that respect?
I think, as many minnows power up across the board, that we are moving towards the core design of Steemit as voting power gets more spread out among the Steemit masses.
Pareto's law states that there will always be higher concentrations of power in a few amongst the many; that's just how the Universe is.
You want to know about inequality?
Just 3 individuals, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, and Bill Gates; collectively are worth 60% of ALL the wealth in the United States.
Having more witnesses being paid in Steem to spend 8 hours a day, covering Steemit 24 hours a day, watching for awesome posts and giving THOSE posts the $50 upvote would make Steemit more attractive to the uninitiated masses who are new to Steemit.
Give those authors the chance to REALLY show the world how great Steemit is; not an early investor giving themselves a $100 upvote on a picture of a flower.
(After finding him I spent 2 days reading all of his past posts; too many 'laugh-out-loud' moments in a coffee shop to count 😂).@hanshotfirst is a great example of true quality. So is @surfermarly, @neilstrauss, and my favorite Steemian, @themadgoat.
When the trending page gets fixed, that'll be a good start.
Perhaps a witness-reviewed trending page that people can go to in order to find quality?
The Steemit team is doing great, I have no doubt they'll do even better when we, the people of Steemit, offer constructive feedback on HOW to make it better.
🤜🤛 🤝