RE: 3 Major Changes In The Steemit Ecosystem During Last Year
I was really surprised to see you write, with relation to the bid bots:
it's a model and it's working
The important question i feel is "working for whom"? It certainly doesn't seem to be working for the little people. Most of those using bots are losing money and they are not getting seen.
The people getting seen are those that can afford to pay $150 and up to get on trending. I've yet to read of a minnow who has got more visibility as a result of using bots.
It is a very contentious issue and there have been a number of posts lately by respected and experienced Steemians who feel that, if the current growth of bots continues, they could sound the death knoll for Steemit.
I'm really surprised that you are in favour of them @dragosroua. Perhaps I'm missing something here! 😕 😍
There are hundreds of thousands of minnows, so it’s not possible for them all to get seen. I think there’s an unfortunate misconception that it’s easy to just show up here and start making money but in reality, just like any other site, it takes a lot of time and hard work. Also a monetary investment helps a lot.
The cool thing is that unlike centralized platforms like Facebook, YouTube, or Reddit, those monetary investments help everyone on the platform by increasing the price of STEEM rather than a single company.
Also, though it does take time and hard work, it is MUCH easier to get seen, grow your brand, and make money here right now than on any other site I have ever seen.
If you spend $100 advertising on Facebook then you’re out that $100 and it’s hard to make that back from the impressions and clicks you get on your ads. If you advertise on Steem for $100 using the bid-bots, you will get probably 90% of that back right away just from the value of the bot’s votes PLUS you will get a huge amount of visibility and, assuming you’re promoting good content that people like, you’ll end up with way more than that initial $100 investment plus a ton of new followers who will read and upvote your posts from then on.
Yes, that means you need to get $100 worth of STEEM, which I know is not easy, but there’s literally no other platform in existence right now (that I know of) that comes anywhere close to that in terms of value per $.
I think that is the biggest misconception of people that if they use bidbots they would earn more than what they put in.
Just doesn't make sense why they would think of that because bid bots are tools for you to increase your visibility not just in the trending page but on certain tags as well. I rarely go to the main trending page but I do check the trending on certain tags I like for example philosophy and psychology to motivation tags. I look at both trending and new and this is how I find new people to follow and if they make consistent good content then I add them to my Ginabot notifications.
I use bots and I know fully well what I am getting myself into and know that I will be getting some of the SBD back but not profiting if I don't get additional high votes after, I'll get some SP and also some followers.
So far I have not lost any money yet and although my profit margins are not that high about 3-10% for me it is not a reason for me to advocate against it.
It provides movement of transactions and the more it is used the better it is for the coin.
I think one of the problems @yabapmatt is the bots often aren't talked about in the way you have. It's not clear to newbies that the best way to think about them is as advertising.
They are mostly sold as money earners and it's easy to think you are making money when, in fact, you are not because of the way the pay outs work.
$100 worth is a lot of Steem, as you say, for a lot of minnows but it's not just about the "money". It's also about confidence and understanding marketing (by the sound of it).
Even from the very launch of Steemit there was the possibility to pay for being exposed in the Promoted tab. It's an inbuilt feature of the platform. Some people are taking it and refactor it. It is the best possible model for everyone? Absolutely not. I didn't even say that. What I said is that they are moving money around for getting people attention. It's a start. It's part of the business model. And yes, it's perfectible.
I still remember the 1,000,000 pixels page back in the day of the web advertising birth. Boy, what a stupid and short lived thing :) And yet, it served as a lesson, the industry moved on and people found other ways.
It's about evolution.
Oh Yeah! I'd forgotten all bout the 1,000,000 pixels page @dragosroua. I think I might even have bought one. I can't remember. 😂
Evolution is good, but it can't happen if there is nothing left to evolve. Maybe I'm taking the idea that the bots might completely push out humans, too seriously. 😁
There does seem to be an increasingly big split growing between some witnesses and more powerful Steemians who don't use bots and those that own them though.
Maybe the next steem update, which schould introduce communities, will help minnows? Anyway tip! 1 sbd :)
Thank you @cardboard. That's very much appreciated! 😍
Hi @gillianpearce! You have received 1.0 SBD tip from @cardboard!
Protip: if you want to send tips and upvotes from @tipU you need to make a deposit first.