An Objective Look at Vote Buying Bots and Some Other Steemit Stuff
I had what I felt was a really great talk with @whatsup last night, and we touched on the subject of vote buying bots. She also discussed them with other people, and I read her comments.
@whatsup has been a proponent of the bots for a long time, and I do think she makes good arguments. Those who know me know that I'm pretty ehh about them, personally.
But let's have an objective look.
In 2016 when I joined Steemit, the gimmick of the site was presented to me as follows:
It's a stake-based platform; the more STEEM Power a user has, the more influence he has over the reward pool. It's gamified version of social media. Content creators compete with each other for the whale votes every day, so you need to learn what each whale likes and dislikes and work on your content accordingly.
I was fascinated by the concept.
Before making my first post, I learned about Dan Larimer and his philosophies because he was obviously a huge whale at the time. My goal was to get a vote from Dan.
So, I made a post entitled "What if Facebook was Regulated Like the Job Market". It's an old analogy of mine that I still think is the best thing I've come up with in terms of societal articles. The point being that if Facebook was under similar regulations as the labor market is, people would have less Facebook friends as the Facebook friend market would suffer in a number of ways.
My devious plan was successful, and my very first post on the platform got a vote from Dan.
Since then, I had times when I actually actively decided to have a trending post. I went out of my way to write a post with the goal of getting it to trending. Not every time was successful, but most of those times I managed to pull it off. I would have a few whales in mind who I wanted to target, made a post with them in mind and boom.
That was the concept that hooked me at first: the idea of just using your brain smarts to succeed. It was the gamification aspect of the whole thing that attracted me.
I realize not everyone is capable of doing that, but I viewed Steemit as a meritocracy; the smart would swim, while the rest would sink.
I also realize that all of the above may be absolutely infuriating to some, and I may have just earned a few new haters, but I also know that the people here who like me, like me for my honesty. So there's some honesty for you.
Now it's the middle of 2018, and a lot of hardforks later, things have changed quite a lot.
Steemit is an entirely different landscape than it once was. The entire "Try to attract a whale" aspect of Steemit that I once enjoyed so much is all but gone. It's no longer a game of wits, not really.
The whales have delegated their SP to the vote bots, and for the most of us, it doesn't matter what we do or how we do it, we will never get that big whale vote. It's pretty much impossible.
And with all the STEEM Power going around through delegations, the votes by non-whales are probably the least valuable they've ever been.
Though I do want to add that when I talk about value, I'm merely talking monetary value. Votes by humans who manually went through something I created and felt like it was worth their time to upvote - no matter their SP - are infinitely valuable. I guess I'm endlessly insecure like that and need some kind of validation for the stuff I create. So, don't think for a second that just because you don't have a million in STEEM Power that I don't appreciate each and every person who actually genuinely follows me.
But anyways.
Obviously enough, as I got "older and wiser" in terms of Steemit age, certain realities of the platform became apparent to me; a lot of the content that got big support never really had anything to do with the content, but the support was the result of "good brother" networks, under the table deals, "I'll scratch your back, you'll scratch mine", vote trading, all that good stuff.
Furthermore, the political reality of the site is such that you say one wrong thing and your account is dead. You're ignored by all the major stakeholders, which results in your content being practically invisible forever.
You're too negative, you're toxic. Yada yada.
Followers don't mean much as most of the links aren't discovered through the Steemit feed, but are shared privately in chats. I have 3000 followers, and my content is regularly read by approximately 3 people. Give or take.
So, there are definitely "issues" from the viewpoint of an average user. With that in mind, it's easy to understand the allure of the vote-buying bots: no longer is it a game of luck whether or not your content gets seen or not.
@whatsup made what I felt was a very, very good point about the bots: now it's completely up to you to invest into your content directly, and have it become visible to everyone.
That's an excellent point, and I'll be the first to admit that.
With the bots, even someone like who has alienated the community could theoretically get into trending automatically.
And I get the point. It's advertising. You create something, you pay for advertising, you hope it pans out. It's easy to understand on paper.
I don't have an objectively true argument to make against the bots. That's why I'm destined to fail the debate because the "free market" argument is an automatic win card, especially on Steemit.
I can't tell people what to do with their stake.
No matter how much I would want to be one of the lucky ones on those delicious whale autovote lists.
Though honestly, I'd probably feel awkward. My wallet wouldn't, but I would. Would I complain, or would I shut up? I'd like to stay I'd stay true to my beliefs, but I also realize that I'm human, so who knows. We always say one thing in Situation A, but in Situation B, we go out of our way to rationalize our sudden change in stance. And we don't even notice it, our brain tricks us into not noticing. That's why we never realize our hypocrisies.
But that's offtopic.
In our conversation, @whatsup assumed that I wanted to "hang the bots", but I'd like to clarify that that is not the case. Not really. I don't even "blame" people for "using the evil vote bots" because I totally understand their use. It's an advertising service.
In my opinion, not a very good one, though, since I'm not convinced that a spot in trending really benefits anyone anymore since the whales don't curate anyway, so the additional votes you get are from minnows with the profit made totaling to the couple of bucks you would have made otherwise anyways.
I can't recite to you the amount of times I've had a post somewhere on trending (it used to be pretty regularly a year ago) and I had a lot of new faces on every post complimenting it, only to disappear forever after. I never saw them again.
So it seems to me that the additional support is not very genuine, and definitely not long lasting.
Perhaps I'm wrong, maybe there is a former minnow out there who has the bots to thank. Someone can comment.
My not using the bots is simply a personal choice, based on personal taste.
Me, personally - me as in the individual known as @schattenjaeger - had more fun and more success on this site before the vote bots became a thing.
So, for selfish reasons, I dislike them and the current landscape of things.
I don't want to crucify people for using them. Some people feel that it's necessary to use them in order to not sink here. And I can understand people wanting their stuff to be seen and appreciated. I do, too.
For me, it's no different than not going to McDonald's since I'm a vegetarian. I don't morally support what the company does or stands for, so I choose not to use their services.
Doesn't stop me from being friends with people who either go to or work at McDonald's. Though I would like to talk about priorities in life with the latter group, especially if they're over the age 18, but be that as it may.
I just liked it better before. And of course it has to do with the fact that I was successful under the old rules. Anything else would be gross bullshiting.
I used to be one of the semi-big shots, and now I'm dead in the water. And I'm bitter, no question.
A few people have pointed out the fact that I powered down which is very unpopular here, but I powered down only after it became apparent that I wasn't going to be accepted as one of the golden boys, so why bother trying. I might as well take what I can, right?
It's easy for a person making triple digits automatically - sometimes several times a day - to be holier than thou and preach about never powering down. Well duhh? It's a completely different landscape.
Why would I ever power down if I was one of the golden boys? Or girls, for that matter. I can especially think of one example who's openly stated to not giving two shits about the platform, the people, the chain, anything, and I mean anything, that has to do with the site other than the amount the person can dump. And my God it's infuriating to see the community bend over backwards to throw money at that person's way just because the person is so good at playing everybody. The person has told me all of this privately.
That said, I can't force anyone to like A) me or B) my content, which is why I've settled to just focusing on what I like to do and would do for free. And the people who like to support me and follow me, I appreciate to no end.
The funny thing is. After all my complaints, my rants, my despair, my whining, you name it. I still somehow care about this place and want to see it do better.
This post really lost focus halfway through, but whatever.
I mean you could have topped off the irony of the post by using a bidbot to promote it, but still well said.
When I used to see crap at the top of trending I could generally determine a reason, like "Oh, this whale likes memes or obviously this whale likes to smoke pot" When there wasn't an obvious connection you would dig a little deeper and find some people vote trading or close geographical community promoting their own, etc.. I might not have liked it all but it made sense to me.
Now I see random garbage at the top and just ignore it, there is no deeper insight needed, they just paid to get it there.
I'm gonna have to say something here, though, about the trending page. I've made fun about it in the past, as well - a lot. But honestly, I don't think it's very fair to make a blanket statement call all of it "garbage", straight up.
The reason I don't enjoy it is the trending page has a lot of very general stuff. It almost never happens that I open the trending page and find something I want to click on.
It doesn't make content garbage, though. I'm sure there are people who enjoy some of that stuff.
However, it is something that does make me sad that there seems to be very little "daring" content at the top. It's all very safe - and to a guy like me, boring.
That's just my subjective view, though.
Oh not all of it is garbage by any means, I meant that when I do see a random out of place article at the top, I know why it is there.
Oh yet another judge of all things quality and garbage. Exactly what I get tired of on Steemit. If it is so bad, why are you here?
Don't knock judgements; without them, things rarely improve. Some people stay here to try and make things better instead of going away.
I've seen you make better arguments.
I must say this is also true. Man, there was good quote somewhere by someone. It was something along the lines of: "Don't think meaningful change can't be caused by a small group of people wanting change; indeed, they're the only ones who ever have."
"Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For indeed, that's all who ever have." Margaret Mead
True.. shit. I guess I really need to take a break. The constant negative noise has finally pushed me over the edge.
Dang it, I know you are right. It was snarky and petty.
I can still be friends with someone that uses bidbots...but I will totally judge them for it. They're undermining everything this place stands for, and are a small part of the downfall of the entire platform.
Sure, that might sound a bit over the top, but really, look at trending. The shit that gets rewarded now has nothing to do with quality. What is this place worth when it's just a joke where shit gets rewarded, not because it's worthy, but because the person paid a bot or runs some vote circle jerk?
It was an epic conversation and a bit exhausting also enjoyable. I rarely find people who will challenge their own position on things and actually consider the other side of a point.
Some of the other commenters are what I like the least about Steem.
Victims of their own arrogance. "There is nothing good enough for me because I am just that awesome."
To be real, I've haven't seen such a group of judgemental, arrogant egos, since I left the Catholic Church. :)
Much respect and the bots wouldn't be here and certainly wouldn't have the demand if some of the stakeholders had begun to support some different and new people. For now I consider them the greatest equalizer on the site.
For those who think the trending page sucks, go have a new view. Instead of looking for what you don't like, ask yourself if objectively, someone might be interested in it.
The most tiring part of steem is not feeling criticized for everything you do. I think that has way more to do with adoption than the financing.
One person I brought on said it is like high school cheerleader camp. (due to all the bitchiness)
Thanks Schattenjaegar. I can't tell you how nice it was to have a back in forth with someone who listens, reads, considers and continues the discussion.
I'm unconvinced the analogy between bid bots and advertising holds, as bid bots have effects advertising hasn't. As far as it does hold: I don't want bought advertising here either, as it makes content discovery even more difficult than it already is, and it favours the big wallets, skewing the distribution even further.
I prefer people investing time in their content over people investing money in advertising their content. The latter goes against all I thought Steemit stood for when I came here. I may, of course, have been wrong then, in which case, consider this comment void.
On a personal level, I agree with this. This is also why I opt out of using them. I'll choose the way of the martyr who invests his time and effort into the content, despite the end result.
I'll die a martyr, but I'll die my way. Or something. I dunno.
Isn't there a song about that? The second verse starts with "regrets", if I remember correctly 8-).
Hahaha. :D
It's interesting how the whole bid bot justification seems to have shifted from making money to marketing @schattenjaeger.
But, I would also guess
But it probably makes people think they are doing something that is getting them somewhere.
Certainly if you look at the figures without doing the maths returns can look quite good.
I've not heard about writing for whale votes before but that explains why people make a big fuss about what a waste of time it is trying to attract a whale vote. That was always pretty obvious to me but the fact that it wasn't always like that makes sense of why people would need to say so.
I don't use the bots myself, but it's just my understanding that the financial returns aren't really there, so I'm not sure if they are a valid reason to use them, really.
So, I'm just assuming that it's the advertising aspect of it all.
Well pretty much all the posts I've read have said the maths not longer works out, i.e. you don't make a profit. But, it can easily look like you do.
I used a simple bot for a couple of weeks that paid me 3 times what I paid it so I thought I was making loads. Then a friend of mine showed me the maths and I was actually losing money every time so I stopped and haven't bothered again.
It can look very attractive financially but it doesn't seem to work out well for most people.
Once that was known there seemed to be a shift to the marketing argument for using them and, as I say, I'm not convinced that works either. 😁
Thanks for the post. I'm worried the bots are breaking down the economic engine of Steemit.
I have yet to hear how bidbots are not a ponzi scheme that just relies on new bodies entering Steemit and investing real dollars. The majority of the gains float to the top, and weaker and weaker content reaches the Trending page.
If no one comes here to post, curate, and read good content, then all you have left is the first ever decentralized blogging platform for bots.
Yeah... the current way of things has taken Steemit away from the way it was first presented to me. Some like, some don't.
Ideally, everybody would compete for manual human votes. That'd be the good kind of gamification, in my opinion.
But the monetary incentive makes that impossible to achieve, I think. And some people like things the way they are, so.
My main interest in Steemit was always if it could solve the "Quality"-problem. The first experiments with this i think was Slashdot's karma system. I am still interested in systems that can support artists directly, but as for quality, Steemit has convinced me that humans do excatly the same way online as they do in the flesh.
The corruption you talk about, because that is what it is when you go nepotist behind the curtains in what should be an open system, the creation of institutions (like Steemcleaners and Curie), the endless opportunism and lick-ass attitude towards the powerful... it all mirrors how any other state is created. Funny to have been here for two years to see the anarchist commune become thrifty pirate-gangster haven (actually what happened at Christiania here in Copenhagen), but not that funny when you could see this happen every other place on the globe.
I have earned more from Bitcoin donations from people on other free sites (Diaspora), than I have earned here with my comic and my art (which is professional quality). It is not that I have not benefited from the community, I have very much - two people translating my comic and helping out, a few large donations, actually lots of funny connections and intelligent people, but money-wise I can see that communication and not quality is what gives you money. That is exactly like the art world I left five years ago.
I think this place needs a middle class. It wouldn't make Steemit Utopia (it hasn't done so elsewhere), but it would make the system less arbitrary and erratic. I just use Steemit as another platform to promote my art. I early on saw how people stopped voting for power-downers, so I didn't. I have powered up instead to see if I can get closer to actually let my self-vote count for something.
Anyways... before I write a whole post. Interesting things you write - mostly not new to me but at least we share view on a lot of things. I hate the vote-selling because it is not promoting quality. I know how the world work, but that doesn't mean I like it.
This comment was better than my post. I, too, think that Steemit has failed in rewarding quality.
Even if I recognize the Subjectivity of Value problem.
Hehe, thanks. There will of course never be complete consensus on quality and there doesn't have to be. It would be a strange and boring world if there ever was. But most of us can judge competence and effort, and if different circles of consensus could go together upvoting that it would be great. I imagine that a broader range of wealthy people could ensure that, but of course I don't know. Would be interesting to see if it ever happened.
Maybe I should try to take up the subject. Nothing attracts people as a post about Steemit :) and the quality discussion is seldom discussed seriously. Mostly it is people being pissed that their master-post get less than the charming amateur.
I think that there is a larger vision to steem, beyond steemit. While I understand that bots suck and steemit generally sucks, the potential for the blockchain to be the engine of all securitarized websites is far greater than what steemit is capable of.
with that said, I also think that people aren't being creative enough with the way they make money because bots are very easy to create.
Looking at steembottracker today vs just a few months ago, youll see dozens of new bots being created (and I suspect this has to do with the fact that the bot code is up on github and everyone just copies the same code). Eventually the land will be saturated and it will become very competitive to make money for the bots since they have to pay back their delegators.
By that time, I hope that people would be focused on new ways to get centralized content and power it off of steem and people wont even realize they are using steem anymore.
also, this is the key.
Youll probably never see this comment, cause I've been away and missed this post by a crap ton of days, but I just thought I'd stop by and show my human support. Im pretty sure I found you from one of your trending posts way back in the day, I remember thinking you were one of the sortof big guys, but I actually thought you were a girl back then. I liked it better back then too. I got lucky in the beginning, bernie found me very early on, I think on my first or second post. I loved how I could just post photos and people would vote on them because they liked them. I eventually got on some whale lists, I used to get votes on the regular from ned, but I squandered it by not being around enough. After HF19 I dropped off the face of the planet here, now I make a modest 4-5$ from every post I make, I think mostly because I never powered down, which was more just from not being around than an active choice. Anyhow, whatever it is, is whatever. You know I always love your content, even if I'm not around to catch it all. And I'm with you on being bitter for the good old days.
It's only a mildly different subgame. I don't blame you for liking the "sucking up to whales" game and disliking the "do a shitload of math to profit from bot votes" game. But the latter one is actually way more meritocratic and allowing the smart to swim than the former. All you have to do is the math.
Upvoted for understanding this.
That’s a fair point, but just to clarify: it wasn’t ”sucking up” I was talking about, but rather creating content that you know certain people enjoy.
Either funny or insightful stuff.