Two days ago, I created a list of the biggest customers of @randowhale and @upmyvote from the week before. Then I warned those users not to purchase any more upvotes from these bots again. This post will look into whether this had an affect on the bots revenue and I will add a list of the biggest new customers since the past two days. And finally, I will detail my strategy for this game.

For now, I will leave @upmyvote away, because it turned out to be owned by @themarkymark. But since this bot has received a delegation from @berniesanders and marky is bernies best comrade, there is a good chance, I will come back to that bot soon.

Here are the daily transfers coming in to @randowhale

Amount $	Date	Before/After The Warning
185.043	Wed, 2018-03-14	Before
324.100	Thu, 2018-03-15	Before
382.919	Fri, 2018-03-16	Before
321.554	Sat, 2018-03-17	Before
424.322	Sun, 2018-03-18	Before
238.790	Mon, 2018-03-19	Before
232.051	Tue, 2018-03-20	The Day Of The Warning
197.379	Wed, 2018-03-21	After
281.449	Thu, 2018-03-22	After

It is a bit early for conclusions. Less than a week has passed since and only a minority of customers has been reached out to. But as you can see, the number for Wednesday went up by 6%, while the number for Thursday sank by about 13%. For both days combined the revenue sank by 6% or a total of 31$, which is equal to about 60 US-$ at todays market prices.

A good start, but of course we will see the real results when more customers have been driven away and especially, when the first flagging occurs and bernie can't fulfil the promise anymore of delivering a good upvote.

These are the biggest customers of @randowhale of the past two days

User	Total Amount Spent	Warning received?
@pwangdu	57	Has been warned before.
@discernente	25	Has been warned before.
@chbartist	18	Has been warned before.
@nadin3	14	Will receive a warning now.
@openbull	10	Has been warned before.
@sustainancy	10	Will receive a warning now.
@zulkiflisaadan	10	Will receive a warning now.
@anton-kostroma	9	Will receive a warning now.
@bammbuss	15	Will receive a warning now.
@artline	8	Has been warned before.
@foodpadma	8	Will receive a warning now.
@horoscopos	8	Will receive a warning now.
@nurdinnakaturi	8	Will receive a warning now.
@asimshahzad	7	Has been warned before.
@puncakbukit	7	Has been warned before.
@afzalqamar	7	Will receive a warning now.
@decoracion	7	Will receive a warning now.
@digi5952	7	Will receive a warning now.
@livelifefullest	6	Has been warned before.
@apayek	6	Will receive a warning now.
@seckorama	6	Will receive a warning now.
@prostosun	5	Has been warned before.
@shanishah	5	Has been warned before.
@freeinthought	5	Will receive a warning now.
@knopka145	5	Will receive a warning now.
@matytan	5	Will receive a warning now.
@nehans	5	Will receive a warning now.
@photohunt	5	Will receive a warning now.
@sportx	5	Will receive a warning now.
@xunsh1ne	5	Will receive a warning now.
@yatri	5	Will receive a warning now.

The users who have received a warning but still chose to buy from @randowhale (and not another bot..) have spent a total of 148$ since the warning. Number one is @pwangdu with 57$ who wrote a comment to one of my articles about the issue.

I assume, he received some sort of an assurance from the side of @berniesanders: No matter what will happen, he will be compensated. While I don't hold any grudge towards @pwangdu, I hereby confirm that his posts containing a @randowhale upvote will be flagged.

The overall goal is to increase the costs of the upvote business so much that @berniesanders goes bust

A very legitimate way of holding customers in general is to offer an additional insurance. I strongly suspect that @berniesanders (and @themarkymark) did the same as I described it above, and gave customers the assurance that on every one of their upvote bits will definitively follow a vote worth their investment.

This is ok. In fact, this is what I was hoping for, because it increases the costs for running the upvote bot.

Normally, on one upvote request follows one upvote. But if you have to upvote twice for the same amount of money, then your profit rate per vote will drop by 50%. On top, this drains the voting power reservoir and while normally, bots rarely go below 90%, this forced double upvoting will lead to the bot losing its voting power faster. Hence, the bot has to "sleep" for a while to regain its strength.

Customers will have to go elsewhere in that time and maybe they will stay there and forget about @randowhale.

But that is not all of it. In the most cases, a warning is enough, as the most reactions to my messages to customers show.

For them, the market for upvote bots is very homogeneous, which is why they don't mind where they receive it. The biggest differences between bots is how old a post can be and some bots have restrictions for the amount for upvotes. And with at least a dozen big bots on market, there should be enough variation to chose from, without having to go to @randowahle. Leaving and staying away is very cheap.

This lowers the overall revenue the bot makes, and yes, it will drain its voting power less and the duration for the sleep will be reduced. An advantage for the bot (well, his owner) again, but then you have to think of the objective of all this: Reducing the revenue and therefore profit of the bot.

With less customers purchasing less upvotes, the goal has been reached and it won't make a difference anymore how fast the bot regains its voting power.

And in this calculation, possible retaliations for downvotes against his customers are not even included. If you add them in, every flag against @randowhale customers will cost @berniesanders three times as much:

1. For the initial upvote of the customers post.
2. For the second upvote to neutralize the flagged post.
3. For the retaliation against the flaggers of his customers.

Always remember: Important is the loss in trust by the customers of @randowhale, not the flagging

In the fights so far between @berniesanders and others, the attacks always went straight to the chest a.k.a. the post. Alternatively - and this is the real hazardous effect of these wars - they went against users who received an upvote made by the respective opponent.

It was always about the direct hit and it needed to be the biggest hit possible. With my approach on the other hand, the big hit is simply not necessary. Perhaps not even a few cases.

All it needs is the undermining of the trust in the capability of @randowahle and his owner to meet upvote requests.

What this requires is not hits with the hammer, but needle stitches. That is also the reason, why it won't be too expensive for the flaggers (just take a look at my wallet;-). Neither when it comes to the direct flagging of @randowhale customers, nor when it comes to the risk of possible retaliation attempts.

It will simply be too expensive for bernie and in the meantime, @randowhale dies.

Should it really be necessary, there is a more drastic way of accelerating things.

Flagging all content made by a customer irrespective whether the specific post has received an upvote by @randowhale or not is possible. That would be very extreme, as I think, and I am confident, we won't have to go that far.

After all, it is too simple for the customers to switch without any loss before this becomes the next best option.

But be reminded: This kill-option exists.


You will find all my posts in this matter under the tag #curbyourbernie