I firmly believe advertisements, like the post above, should be removed from trending tab and placed under the promoted tab. As soon as these bots are detected, a small icon should appear next to headline to warn people they are about to read advertising.
then everyone needs to know how to use them.
Just because they sell crack, that doesn't mean we need to buy it and smoke it.
Many very large players use the bots to get their articles in top positions...
Yes, they've been misleading the public for a long time.
When I see minnows spending their first $15 SBD on these bots because of these misleading claims about how the bots are supposed to help them instead of powering it up, it's easy to see there's something wrong with this picture. That's $83 US dollars today that they could have powered up for profits down the road being handed over to a middle man for no reason other than superficial nonsense. Many of them don't get more views and votes. It's the content of the post that gets those, not the money beside it.
For instance. You bought this slot high up on trending. You won't say how much you spent, but I know it's in the high hundreds. This post gives me no reason to follow you. Why would I be interested in placing ads on my feed? There's no blog here to follow, no blogger, no personalized touch, no entertainment value. Sorry if I sound like Simon Cowell, but this blog simply won't make it to the next round for me.
These new members want to attract high powered free votes. Maybe I have one of those. I like to use it. No amount of money beside a post can influence me to think, "If there's money there, the blogger must be good." It has to be interesting, to me. That's how you get more views and votes. Those are free.
People need to earn the attention they need in order to be successful here. That sort of attention can't be bought. If I offered a ten spot to be my friend, would you take it and be my friend? ...come on. I don't need friends that bad.
P.S. I did find this post to be humorous when you started thanking everyone in the comments for "success", after you clearly bought the slot. That part was hilarious.
Thank you again for the thoughtful reply.
I really agree, I think you have a great idea. I also would like to see all posts that have used bid-bots to be flagged as such. I think it would help the platform tremendously.
With that said, I can tell you that some of the most respected names use the bots vigorously and we both know that is true. I plan to continue to print the bid-bot report each week to identify the largest users and the payouts received. At this point, my bid-bot usage pales in comparison.
I think we all agree that steempress is a very useful entity. So is this advertisement? Last month, many thousands of SBD went to the bots from many respected entities.
The solution is to either get rid of them or to know how to use them properly.
I vote to get rid of them, but until then I will continue to promote what I think are quality articles that educate.
Here is an article I wrote recently that I did not promote aggressively. I believe it is highly informative and very useful to the community. If I had promoted it more, than more people would have this info.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@bycoleman/where-does-all-the-money-come-from-on-steemit-fully-answered-will-it-continue-yes
I very much appreciate your feedback on this and I actually believe we agree more than you think.
Let's work together to find a real solution!
Indeed it is an advertisement.
Steempress could be useful to thousands of people, that's true. There's nothing wrong with promoting it. That's how this business works.
Those thousands of people should be encouraged and eager to vote, for free. Meanwhile, those thousands of people can then use steempress and have a fair shake at true trending status because the ads were placed in the correct location and labelled as such.
Nobody loses money if things are put where they belong. We don't see ads in the trending section of Facebook, or anywhere else, for a reason. They're always kept separate, even on television. The ads still get hits.
Everyone stands a chance to earn more if it's done properly. Advertisers or someone who needs to promote something can buy STEEM. Place ads on blogs. Pay blogs ad revenue with STEEM for those hits. Then, even those who aren't fortunate enough to be able to generate ad revenue still benefit if they're holding STEEM.
Do it right, everyone wins. Investors, witnesses, developers, bloggers, advertisers. All of them.
Please see the revision at the end of the post. You made a very useful point about showing what it cost.
The "Thank you for your support" was meant to be exactly how you read it--- A full example of what the bids bots do and also how authors react to their new success and followers. I do not believe I can be more transparent.
I'm not questioning your integrity. I just have a habit of finding things funny. No fault of yours.
I really thank you for taking the time to articulate your view points on this subject. I hope the readers of this post will also see this discussion and find it to be as informative and useful to the overall subject on bid-bots as I have. I'm sure the platform will need to more fully develop a standard that can be used by all.
Many blessings!
Thanks for the talk.
Have a good day.
One day people right articles on how it's the only way to get noticed, everyone's doing it, it's allowed so it's okay and the next day I will run into a article with someone like you telling it like it is. I guess it's enough to get your conscious a good work out. Most times it's doesn't even matter if it's a quality most post or not most people using bots that I see get a few dollars back on return, sure they get ahead a few bucks but no where near where the person selling the service is getting.
I also have had a discussion with someone who sells his steem to get bandwidth time, I am not selling my steem to get on someone's service. Why would I give them back what I earned...that doesn't make any sense. Do you have any words of wisdom on that take?...do I have that wrong or does it make more sense just to wait until bandwidth goes back up.
If you're giving away your SBD to buy votes instead of locking it in as Steempower, that's a fine way to keep having bandwidth issues, I suppose. I guess that's another reason why it's a bad idea to buy those votes when you're new especially. You're shooting yourself in the foot if you spent the money trying to get noticed but now can't even interact with the platform. Read that link where I compared the paid votes to crack cocaine. It explains a lot and the comment section is jammed with others expressing their concerns as well.
I haven't touched anything at all in my wallet. Basically because I can't understand what to do with what except not wanting to give it away whether it be to buy depleted power that will naturally come back (which I've only had the problem once) or so someone whose already rich can get richer selling me a product instead of up voting content of minnows to help them out. What's in my small pot is exactly where it landed originally until I can comprehend what does what when you do what with it. I've read a number of articles and it still confuses me, at some point though I guess the right one will come along that will make it click.