Yeah, if you check @steeveapp account, you will see quite a few posts there that didn't get much attention. That is why we put this Beta release post together and decided to promote it this way.
If you ask me, it is pretty annoying that you have to do this, it is hard to spread the word any other way than getting to Trending. People generally don't resteem, so all that is left is get to Trending by payout.
That's just the way the world works, and it is no different on Steemit. The thing about paid bots people don't seem to understand is that they are a critical component of the economy. If a company/dev/content creator wants to advertise on Steemit and build brand awareness, they go the exchange and buy Steem to pay the bot, which in turn creates demand for the token. Demand for Steem doesn't just magically materialize because of all the "good content" people post on the platform.
Right, I get what you are saying. On the other hand, it is slightly (or perhaps highly) confusing on Steemit for example that there is
TrendingandPromotedwhile actually both are about promotion, just using different means to get attention.To me it looks like that the whole thing accidentally works somehow just because people are paying bots to promote good things, because who would pay money to promote crap.
Your point is valid, but I don't like that
Trendinghas very little to do with actual content quality. Promoted posts should be simplyPromoted. I am not sure it is a good thing that you will never get intoTrendingwithout paying quite a lot of money yourself. But surely you can pay for a good article, get followers and then depend on them to vote on your stories.On the other hand,
Trendingwill probably never be and never was about content quality so much. In the early days it was enough for a single whale to vote on an article and it got there instantly.But this is a broader issue to think about, how to promote good content, and everybody is thinking about that I guess. A new user can get super frustrated super quickly currently, I can tell you that.
Or perhaps Steem is just mirroring how real world works and there is nothing wrong with it. People with power are using it, people without power can do shit.
You really think vote selling is critical to our economy? I would suggest the contrary. They are what is holding us back.
I think what @mor, @void, and @hr1 are going to show us how much more valuable the user experience could be without so much pervasive paid votes.
Furthermore, while you think bid bots or vote selling to perhaps be an indispensible part of the ecosystem, I know they have been crucial in the proliferation of abuse accounts that continue to plague our chain and ward off mote scrupulous investors and bloggers.
Lastly, these services do a bit more than promotion. If everybody that used them declined rewards, would be for that but thats not what it is. Not by a longshot.
Once monetary incentives become great, the rules of the game always change. Abuse accounts are always going to be with us in one form or another, even the Steemit whitepaper acknowledged that.
I am aware of this. I think the key is making abuse the path of greater resistance to these accounts. We've been working to that end with @steemflagrewards.