If it wasn’t for promotion bots many minnows would have left ages ago. Almost every platform has a form of advertising. I post on my Facebook pages and within 30 minutes I get an email “this post is performing better than 95% of the posts on the page would you like to boost it for $5?”
Whales vote on what whales vote on just like minnows vote on what minnows vote on. Most whales have been here for a long time and decided who they like or have their own “scheme going”.
The boost of sbd changed the game dramatically causing things to get worse and everyone is trying to make the most money while the peg is off.
Do I think they are hurting the platform? No. What is? Steemit Inc’s lack of transparency, their large stake being used in dubious ways that abuse the platform, the fact 80% of the posts here are spam, the fact there is only one developer working on steem right now as far as I can see, the fact the a large portion of top 50 witnesses don’t even login to steemit anymore, and the fact the community has to sacrifice their stake to police the platform but no one wants to because loss of revenue and retaliation.
Those are the things that will destroy the platform.
First of all thanks for your reply. I really appreciate that power users take the time to address the concerns of new users. While I agree on several of your points I think the main problem with Steemit is the nature of Steemit itself. It pretends to be too many things at the same time. For many users in developing countries, Steemit is a way of earning a living. On the other hand, for most new users in western countries, the revenue is just an extra incentive as they do not see this as a revenue-generating tool rather than a social media that's free of censorship and red tape. I for one enjoy the fact we can basically share whatever we want without fear of getting our accounts suspended (like facebook does). Perhaps the problem as you said goes back to the developers of the platform and their neglect to address these problems. I'm not really aware of the ins of the platform and do not come from a technical background but I think revenue generating bots should be banned and users limited to just one account. That way we give a fair go to all users on Steemit, otherwise this will become the cash cow of those with enough money to purchase Steem power and technical knowledge to create their own bots. Just my 50 cent!
I'm inclined to agree. I don't think bots kill the platform, because at its core the value of Steemit is content production. I could see Steemit filling a niche as a creativity incubator. And that isn't affected by bots. By the same token, that also means the platform won't suffer from banning bots.