How is vote buying being manipulation ?
You buy ads all over the internet. Steems just sucks no one ever looks on the promoted section.
After 2 years of big players buying spots the only real way to compete now is buying a shit ton of steem or buying a vote or two so you can land on the trending page with a good quality article and get exposure and followers from that.
I thought steem corrected vote buying that it was no longer profitable anyways ?
Free downotes are what made vote buying no longer profitable.
Without downvoting a bid botted post, they will make ROI and hurt organic curation. You can get on trending for around $40 nowadays, esp if you get the votes quickly. There are plenty of "non-whales" that end up on trending organically now. Of course, not everyone will get on trending, as they could before, you have to actually earn it now.
Thank you for this, honestly trying to keep up with the changes and find all this information is near impossible when working a job and doing a bunch of stuff including trying to make something of Steemit. I appreciate the feedback and information and doing so in a kind way. So many people are still snap happy on here.