RE: If You Use Upvote Services Please Read These Two Posts
Dunno if it's a typical prisoner dilemma or not. But I have a good answer for this:
"it's also one of the only ways to get any sort of exposure."
Yeah, sorry but no. Six months ago I used to love @buildawhale, which is probably one of the best known and most ethically operated bots here. Back then the minimum bit was 0.1 sbd. I loved using it as a tipping service for posts I liked exactly cause it was so cheap. But now the demand is so huge that the minimum bid is 3 fucking whole sbd. Back then 0.1 was very easy to collect. Today, collecting 3 sbd for a newcomer can be a true feat. Already the thing I am describing in my post (new members getting fucked) is happening and it's gonna become hell worse.
Bots appear to be one of the few ways to get exposure but actually, if you look the forest, it's the exact opposite. Only the old established members can reap the benefits of bots, and even them actually shoot themselves in the head if we take long term into account.
yeah but you have to ask yourself - six months ago when you were using bots and only on the platform for a month or so - how much reputation did you gain by doing that? how many new followers did you gain by people seeing your posts?
It's unquestionable that it gives you exposure, because the way I find posts, is by first looking at my feed, and then by looking at "Hot" or "Trending" and if i find good content i'll click through to that author and follow them if they seem to deliver good content regularly.
and yes of course it hurts new users - I'm one of those. I see some posts get voted up to $200-300 and there's no way i'm pouring that much SBD to get that kind of exposure - there's always the risk involved that somebody downvotes your content and you lose some of, if not all of that outlay. It's almost like a game. And half the time the higher reward posts are all shit memes and photos.
So yeah, I agree that bots aren't great, but unfortunately the platform allows it and it has become wide spread.
I also think mortgages are fucking shit but if i don't have one of those I don't have a house.
"yeah but you have to ask yourself - six months ago when you were using bots and only on the platform for a month or so - how much reputation did you gain by doing that? how many new followers did you gain by people seeing your posts?"
Other than some reputation and some small monetary profits I think I didn't gain any (real) followers or any extra exposure. It wasn't like I had enough sbd to get my self anywhere near the top of trending, and the bot vote usually comes too late to get you in the top of the hot feed.
99% of my earned sp and rep points come from engaging with other people and communities. If I was to start all over from zero with what I now know, I wouldn't even spend a cent to buy a bot-vote.
Bots aren't a necessity, it's a parasite that profits only the early members and unless they take everything out and cash out in the near future, they will also end up getting fucked by them.
I guess we see things from a different angle, and we can keep using different words to make the same arguments :P
I guess it's one of those things that we can respectfully disagree on.
Obviously you've been around longer so you probably no the platform better than I in many respects, but I'd like to see examples of somebody that has built a decent account and profile without using any bots, investing significant capital, or recieved a large boost from one or two whales .
On a side note - bid bots are shit anyway - most of the time the bidders are running at a loss once curation is taken out.
@acidyo and he gives and gives and gives back to new users but once you start buying votes you exclude yourself from his curation team @ocd, you exclude yourself from a @curie vote and a lot of other groups that 100% spend their day looking for low value quality post by new users.