Why Using Bid Bots Is Becoming Unprofitable on Steemit
Anyone who has been around on Steemit for more than four weeks, at least, ought to know what bid bots are. However, for the sake of newbies who don't know, bid bots are automatic accounts on Steemit (which are owned and controlled by one or more Steemians) created for the primary purpose of selling votes through bids.
Bid bots are paid in either SBD or Steem to upvote posts. Usually, bid bots upvote posts based on their voting powers in relation to the total number of bid sent by users per voting time (usually every 2.4 hours).
For example, if a bot which has a voting power of $200 receives a bid of $50 from user A and $10 from user B within a voting period of 2.4 hours, user A would get 50/60 multiplied by $200 which is $166 votes. Whereas, user B would get 10/60 multiplied by $200 which is $33.33 votes. In both cases, the bidders have made massive profits.
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What Then Results to Lose When Using Bid Bots?
The answer is simple: when the total number of bids (in SBD or Steem) within a given voting period becomes equal or greater than the voting power of the bid bot.
For example, when a bid bot which has $200 voting power, as in the case of the example cited earlier, receives total bid of $200+ within a given voting period.
Two Major Reasons Why Bid Bots Are Becoming Unprofitable
A lot of the profits that can be derived from using bid bots are being eroded because of two major reasons, which I will now explain:
- Ignorance
Many of those who use bid bots on Steemit do not even know that there is a website created by a fantastic Steemian by the username @yabapmatt. The website, https://steembottracker.com, can help a potential bidder see what bots are profitable at the moment and the total number of bids within a given voting period per bot. @yabapmatt's classic invention should have revolutionized the use of bots on Steemit but ignorance would not allow a lot of bid bot users to make use of the tool and profit with it.
- Too Many Vote Buyers Chasing Few Bid Bots
Today, even Steemians who have excellent knowledge of https://steembottracker.com are forced to use bid bots blindly and make loses because they have waited for several rounds of bids without seeing any opportunity for great profit. This is because there are two many vote buyers chasing few bid bots such as @upme, @buildawhale, @postpromoter, @pushup, @appreciator, @randowhale, @bid4joy, @booster, etc. So, naturally, bidders become frustrated and buy votes blindly, enriching the owners of the bid bots who receive so much and give out so little.
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The Way Forward
The following are what I personally see as the solutions to the trend of loses arising from using bid bots:
There is an urgent need for investors on the platform and other whales to create more bid bots to remedy the market hijack by the popular bid bots.
There is a need for every Steemian who wishes to use bid bots to STRICTLY track the bots using https://steembottracker.com before sending their bids. This way, bid bots will be more profitable.
Lastly, more attention should be given to other bots which have fixed upvotes for every SBD sent. A good example of such profitable bot is @minnowbooster. The bot votes an equivalent of about 3x for every SBD sent to it. And it automatically refunds when it notices that the vote may turn out unprofitable for the buyer. More predictable bots, such as @minnowbooster, are needed on Steemit, so that users can be sure of making profit from buying votes.
P.s Unfortunately, this post will never trend because the author is a minnow and does not have enough money to buy upvotes from bots.
Hi @gandhibaba thank you for your post. I am sure a lot of people on Steemit feel the same way. I am also new at Steemit and the very first post I wrote was a question on "Why a bid bot wouldn't vote for itself?" Guess what? I didn't get answer. lol. Weird I though, as most forums I am on people are very helpful.
Your first example was the question I was asking: Why would a bid bot that has a value of $200 take only $60 from bidders and not just vote itself up? Well after being on Steemit for a month I have realized that this is frowned upon eg. @berniesandars vs. @haejin and if everyone self voted their comments or posts the Steemit platform would breakdown.
There are some upvote bots that want to help others with low SP but I feel the vast majority do it as a roundabout way of self voting and also to make a profit. The bid bots make a profit when the total bids are greater than the vote value which is very common these days and the bid bots may be taking advantage of the ignorance bid bot users as you mentioned in your post. If the bid bot didn’t want to make a profit and the bid bot really wanted to be altruistic they could easily stop accepting bids at a certain point (fixed upvotes as you mentioned) or refund users if not profitable.
I have used bid bots as I wanted to see what they were all about. It seemed like a really weird concept to me and hence my question on why they don’t vote for themselves. I don’t think bid bots are profitable to most users but as @themarkymark said, they can serve a purpose as you can use them as promotion in the form of paid advertisement for your post.
Cheers!
ian
It's really great reading your contribution on this subject. Particularly, I appreciate the dynamic perspective you introduced into the discussion which is why bid bots don't vote themselves. It is, really, a tough question.
However, I don't think bid bots refuse to vote themselves because of rules against self voting. In fact, whales such as @adsactly and @sndbox self vote. The only reason why a bid bot would refuse to self vote is because it is less profitable than receiving bids from users. Don't forget that whatever they get from bids is 100% profit unlike pay outs which involves spliting pay outs into SBD and SP and paying at least 16% to curators.
It is a pleasure to have your contribution to this subject. Thanks and be great.
Thanks for your reply. Having been on Steemit I do see why bid bots can be profitable to the bots especially when many times the bids are worth more than the vote. But lets say a bid bot says I will only accept bids up to 50% of my vote value well then in this case the bot would "loose" money as it could have just voted for itself with full value. To me if a bid bot is really trying to help minnows or promote good content then it should not take profit and put such a limit to what bids it takes. But in this case people would just be at their computers trying to get in a bid as early as possible which is what i think is happening to MinnowBooster upvote service now.
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I don't use bid bots. As you have mentioned in your article, they are often oversubscribed which just turns into a lose-lose proposition for everyone.
That said, I view such bots more in the sense of post promotion than a means of earning. Then again, there really isn't any reason to pay out of pocket if the bot can return the initial investment at the very least. Which is also the reason I love @minnowbooster since it's the most user-friendly upvote bot out there right now.
I share your sentiments on this. @minnowbooser is really doing great.
I'm makin a minnow fish face (:-@
Lol thanks great friend.