The majority of trending doesn't use or need @buildawhale or any bot. The ones you are referring to are the ones that break out of the system. If it is something that falls under a category I can do something about, I will prevent that from happening.
Every platform out there (Google, Bing, Facebook, Twitter, even Amazon) has a way to buy advertising to increase your visibility by being on the front page.
Everyone here has a way to collectively decide what shouldn't be there.
Ah. Okay. I read through a substantial amount of comments on this post, and while I instantly understood that this was meant to be a jab at trending, I'm still trying to comprehend what you were trying to accomplish with it.
I imagine that you probably got enough shit for it that you won't do something similar again, but just in case you weren't absolutely sure this was a terrible idea, I wanted to bring that point home.
Admittedly I might be a little irritated with your assumption that an early start on the platform means that we had an easier time making money. When steem was worth, oh I don't know, fifteen cents? And none of us could be sure it would ever be worth something substantial, but we kept going anyway? I'll tell you one thing that has changed since then-- there were no upvote bots. There was no vote buying period.