Please fill me in. I haven't heard about paying whales to obtain more visibility and higher reputation but the comments suggests that having the randowhale votes means I paid for more visibility? I occasionally get a percent up vote but I have never requested it. I'm quite lost on all of this. I don't think it is fair to buy your way in though!
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Well @lovewild, this is exactly what is happening. People are buying votes through several different groups of high rep Steemians (Whales) who have pooled their voting power and are selling it off, under the guise of gambling. The gambling part is that once purchased the buyer doesn't know what % increase for their post, they will receive...so it's like pulling the handle on a casino slot machine. With whatever % is "won" for the $2 SBD purchase price, these groups are using their collective voting power through bots to upvote the post (which doesn't cost them anything to do, other than the time to set the bots up) and then because they are being notified by memo in the transfer of the $2 SBD about the post, they are also scooping up more $SBD on the curating side. It's like cheating the platform, in a way. I highly doubt any real live person is actually reading or vetting any of the material that they are voting on. We have over 300,000 people on Steemit now. If even 5,000 people engage in this practice every day, the numbers are astronomical.
Aww man. That really isn't fair at all. I don't like the whole idea of bots on steemit. It just seems like a way to make money rather than engage with people. Thank you for the thorough explaination!