Hi @yabapmatt
Thanks for taking the time to write this piece.
I concede to being vocally against bid-bots, how they are managed by some, and am guilty too of casting general assumptions that the owners would rather not discuss their implications for STEEM and Steemit.
This post has proved some of the above not to be the case.
I'll save the long-winded response for another post on Bots at some point, but would like to ask the following:
What would Steemit look like if we all delegated our stake to bid-bots?
and in response to:
If there were no voting bots they could still just as easily take the same portion of pool they are taking now, if not more!
Do you not think that (minus bot owner take), delegating to a bot is essentially self-voting?
Cheers.
I 100% agree with your very last point Asher...
I agree with you that delegating to the bot and then receiving 90% is the same as self voting... There is practically no difference as it is just monetizing your vote value. The 10% is what the lazy man gives away so he doesn't have to open his account and then self vote. (plus may a fraction of that to not look so bad)
That's why I think this issue is a lot more complex, because the owners of the system are doing one thing, and then the community are frowning on the exact same thing done at the lower levels. Its also why people get mad when someone flags another (think haejin), because you can always find a shittier post that got a big upvote and then got to keep it. We see it every day.
I think the solution will happen when the whales are begging at some point for the "community" to develop. Usually that will occur when they want the price to stop going down. At this point there is not that kinda pain. Its fat city for many of the owners.
But it will change and they will come knocking at your door and they will say "Asher, what can we do for you so that we build a strong community?"... "Can we delegate you 100k steem power and have you build out a network where the people are happy and feel like engaging daily?" "Where is fulltimegeek, can he help us lead people to be good community participants?"
You watch, it is coming... Maybe not this week or the next... But when the price gets low enough that will be what happens. The demand for community builders like you will grow very large (and also that applies to Matt with his services too)
Oh yeah, I feel like this needs to be a component of every discussion. Delegating to a bid bot is absolutely just self voting with the stake from the point of view of the delegator, but even more efficient. (Well except for shameless self upvoters that make sure they vote their own comments throughout the day to not"waste stake".)
I suppose a little goes to the bidder and the bidders gets some promotional value (questionable and even then, unpredictable), so it's better than the delegator actually self voting, but not by much.
One might ask, so what should they be doing with their stake anyway? Delegations to places that increase the value of the platform, obviously. Long term thinking and their own steem will explode in value. Making their bid bot generated SP look like dirt in comparison.
Hey, okay, otherwise we can build a better platform and let these bid bots rule over a drying pond. Shrug.
As I responded to Asher above,
So is it any wonder why people get confused? When the guys that own the system do one thing (whales), its kinda hard to complain about lesser people doing the same thing (every other fish).
Its kinda funny... when I use minnowbooster I see many of my friends in the vote totals because they sold their vote away to minnowbooster. But they will frown on someone who upvotes their own post. I don't blame them though, they are encourage to do such things on a regular basis (sell their votes that is)
Yeah I totally struggled with this disparity. Some people take the position that it's okay until your vote gets to a certain point, but I feel to be fully consistent you have to reject the behavior altogether. And the people that take such positions are really at a disadvantage vs the ones that don't. Oh well....