Hi
This is a nice mini series. It explains a complex issue and is very clear that bidding is a gamble and like all gambling you tend to lose more then you win. You very clearly indicated how if to many people make last minute bids your ROI will be reduced and for some bots it’s negative. So it’s risky. Additionally I think it’s important for people to remember you get 75% of the payout and that 75% is further halved into SP and Steem / SBD. So you get about half of 75% of your total payout back as Steem.
Do this math:
You invest 80 SBD
Your ROI is 125% or 1.25
Your reward is 100 STU or Steem Token Units.
Steem Token Units are what Steemit calls your post rewards before they divided into Steem, SBD and Steem Power.
So back to the math.
Your author reward is 75% or 75 STU
You get 1/2 of 75 STU as Steem or 37.5 and 1/2 of 75 STU as SP or 37.5 and that’s only if Steem price is a dollar. If Steem price is 2$ you get 37.5 STU divided by 2 Or 18.75 SP. Plus in my experience a small amount of SBD like 0.5 SBD.
So even with a 125% ROI which is hard to get, your losing money Putting 80 SBD in and getting 37.5 Steem and 37.5 SP. Add to this the ROI cap that some bid-bots have and your no longer at 125% your at 110% , thus its much harder to make money just on the bid-bot.
BUT... I must say this isn’t the whole picture. If your upvotes from the bot get you on the trending page or if you have a large following, this big reward will cause people to upvote your post in an attempt to get part of the curators reward. This is free money to you and certainly if you get enough of these non-bid bot votes your investment can be profitable.
So I think the take home lesson is bid bots by themselves aren’t always profitable, but if the reward is decent size it will entice additional free upvotes to make your investment in a bid-bot profitable. I am new and still figuring this out, but I think that the bid-bots, large rewards enticing addition upvotes with rewards, loyal whale upvotes, self upvotes and something called reciprocal voting where friends upvote their friends posts are all ingredients in the large money posts. Plus I am sure there are factors I haven’t learned yet, but I hope to learn. I hope someone will write in and tell me more!
Lastly, I personally think when we look at this we we shouldn’t get mad or frustrated, we should learn how to earn here, except what the rules are and just Steem On.