I quite agree with @veeral about removing trending, new, hot and promoted - those tags show the posts and the resteemed posts of what is in one's followers feed (as per my experience).
Here is someone elses explanation of how to calculate the bid (I didn't check the calculations, so I don't say it's correct or not, or propose to use it) https://steemit.com/steemit/@mvrr007/100sbd-50steem-power-and-250-followers-in-my-first-month-want-to-know-how-i-did-it-without-any-investment-may-be-an-example-for
Greed is one of the reasons for the hockey stick in economy isn't it?
There is much more going on behind the scenes than just circle voting, downvoting wars, there are real threats for instance.
One thing Steem lacks is the possibility to upvote a post past the 7-day window - so the poster can't earn anything past this time, while elsewhere can (Youtube, Wordpress, etc.), and can be pretty important for musicians and others. Also one can not resteem an interesting post past the payment window, nor change it in any way.
I've seem also a post which exposed a whale running a bot and using the bids of bidders to downvote others and giving them not even the amount they bid back.
They even say that the poster has to add value to earn something on Steemit, but I think this has nothing or very little to do with reality here. This added value of the post seem very relative on Steemit.
P.S:
- One thing your downvoter didn't see is that the value of your bought votes was as he says maybe at the time he checked (but sorry, your bid was in SBD not USD), at the time of payout it might be entirely different. Or is he going to make it be the exact same value with his money and his friends money? Did he detract the invested SBD from your part or just the cumulative amount the post got from bidbots, the bid money was yours wasn't it? If he didn't than this is theft. But when you really let it pay out (sell on exchange or powerdown) in that so very much despised fiat, then the value will be of what the exchange shows, not the payout number of your post.
- You've gotten your first threat, I guess. He threats that they can put down your post. The question is, if they are so against bidbots why they allow them to exist at all?
- Any criticism, if you are not one of them, is strictly punished here.
Greed is a serious problem everywhere. I believe it is our responsibility to expose that greed whenever we can. I hope I have managed in some part to do that with this post. So far, I think I have got some visibility. Hopefully, I will get some attention from the whales out there.
In regards, to the downvoter, he has every right to do so. Downvoting is a possible response to abuse, I certainly don't think it is the best response. The downvote should also be proportionate to the level of abuse.
The funny thing is. I did not criticize, I made observations regarding behaviour on Steemit. I think people could perceive it as, fair enough. We have interesting times ahead.