I just had to do a short post about the newly formed coalition between some very powerful players on Steemit who are going to try put an end to the harmful pay-for-vote services on Steemit. I guess miracles do happen this time of the year!
Say hello to @grumpycat !
I've been against the vote selling services from the first day I heard about them. Of course in a decentralized community, everyone is free to (ab)use the platform in any way he or she pleases. This doesn't mean that just because some power users can drain money from the platform they should do it. Just ask any voting service and they will deny their wrongdoing, in fact, they will try to convince you that they are "helping" the smaller fish get more rewards, but I wouldn't expect any other response from people who are benefiting from the platform for their own sake.
I have written some posts regarding this issue but most users didn't really understand why I was attacking all the "generous" whales who were "just helping" the desperate minnows. Let's imagine that you've been using a voting service for some time now. This means you've been feeding the service with your hard earned SBD. After you made a post and paid for it you got some investment back. But in order to continue to get rewards, you need to put more SBD, and the process is repeated until you have spent most if not all of your SBD on voting services. After the price of SBD jumped more than 10 times its value recently, can you calculate how much money you have lost on voting services? Let me tell you, a lot! You could have bought 10 times more Steem right now. What's more, once the voting services stop being profitable you will end up with almost no organic traffic and it will be twice as hard for you to get on track.
This is just one scenario where the small fish are getting screwed over the voting services. There are plenty more reasons why these "services" are bad for the platform. I hope that @grumpycat will deliver what it promised and make Steemit great again!
Here is the article: https://steemit.com/steem/@grumpycat/warning-to-vote-buyer-sellers-introducing-grumpycompliance-mandatory-in-14-days-no-post-promotion-allowed-after-3-5-days
More on the topic:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@rossenpavlov/paying-for-votes-is-bad-m-kay
https://steemit.com/steemit/@rossenpavlov/let-s-shut-down-the-corrupt-pay-for-vote-services-now-there-s-a-much-better-service-available
It's an interesting development. I think some people have just been greedy in abusing their position to take more rewards than their posts really deserve. Some of those who are regularly trending buy votes and self-vote. From what I've seen the vote buying doesn't have a massive return, but the sellers obviously benefit the most. I'm not sure the Steemit algorithms need to change if whales are willing to police the system
It's obvious that the rewards distribution isn't really working well. I don't think services like @randowahale for example help in any way. After all, this just discourages good authors on spending energy and time on Steemit. I don't consider myself an author at all and I really rather spend time doing something productive than watch how useless content is trending.
I've seen Grumpy flag people who have been doing well. They complain about that, but were happy to take big rewards from other whales. I hope things will settle down eventually and we can just get on with enjoying Steemit.
I guess with decentralization comes new things that need to be sorted out. I hope things will turn out for the better. I miss the "old" Steemit.
I prefer the n2 and well behaved whales, myself.
Yes I tried to use a few of these services for a post, and now I realize what a scam it is. It’s a bit frustrating though, because it’s not always easy to find an appreciative audience on this platform.
I would love to see some less-profit-driven approaches to helping connect content with people who will appreciate it.
Real followers and organic traffic is where it's at. It's harder this way, but at least you will get some real interaction, and this is what really adds value to your posts and the platform in general.
Wow, I come back to your post and you got hard censored by the upvote bot mafia! Democracy isn’t so assured here on steemit eh?
This place is doomed.
Total Abuse !! Hope to end it soon
good
Thanks for taking one for the team!
Always :)