Now you put me in a quandary. I love the song, oh those harmonies, but I don't generally support posts that trend on paid bots. I'd love to see the trending page with posts that the community actually liked. There are alternative trending pages.
But as it's you guys I'll give you a vote anyway. Maybe this song can trend and get people to think more about what they want this site to be.
Thanks @steevc! We definitely don't want to put our friends in a quandary. I also have a hard time justifying voting on bit bot posts lol.
I'm sailing the same boat as Steve but seeing as you guys are original content through and through, you can have a vote from me as well :D
I really feel the need to chime in on this.
I don't pretend for a second that the bidbots don't see a lot of abuse....but not being willing to support content because bots were used isn't really fair at all.
Clearly I have a biased opinion here, but I think there is a correct way to use the bots and I think I am an example of it.
However, your mentality backfires my approach.
I create original content, content that doesn't just cost me time to create....it costs me a good chunk financially to do so.
Through my show, I'm not just creating content either.
I'm onboarding new users from the locations I travel to, I'm helping strengthen communities in the regions I travel to by hosting meetups and I'm introducing the steemit community to the members they share this space with.
With my show, I've created a product, a product that has an overhead and due to that, a need to advertise said product.
However, unlike others, my goal is to use this marketing to grow an organic viewership that will in time replace the use of bots completely.
Can I grow this show 100% organically?
Of course I can, but what I can't do is sustain the ability to create the content.
Using the bots to advertise my material is helping fund the project plain and simple. If I didn't have this tool available to me, there's no way I could afford to do the work I'm doing.
By choosing to not support the content because it's used these marketing tools, simply prolongs how long I have to continue to use them.
If we really want to see great content make it's way to this platform, we need to provide sustainability for that content, but until that sustainability comes using these tools allows me the chance to keep doing what I'm doing and grow little by little.
Content should be judged on the content, not on how the creator managed to get the content to you.
It's not a black and white issue. I can see you are working hard on this. Do the 'bots' make you much profit? Might you actually make more by not using them if it got you more support from whales? So many questions. You have a good following and I would think many of them would be supporting you regardless of whether you are on the trending page. As it is that is not an interesting place for many of us due to all the low quality posts getting boosted.
Steemit was intended to reward good quality content through community moderation. Buying votes bypasses that. It may boost your reputation too, but that's not due to people liking what you do. It just feels wrong to me and I think it harms Steemit in general. I want this platform to succeed and so do many others. Others just treat it as a profit opportunity. I'm not accusing you of that, but the freedom we have here allows everyone to do what they want, with the proviso that others can exercise their voting power to pass judgement.
I wish you all the best with what you do. I may well vote up some of your posts and I wouldn't flag you as I have with some posts that didn't deserve massive rewards. Not that my vote makes much difference.
The bots don't really make me profit (not saying they never have).
They provide me visibility that is allowing a slow but steady organic growth.
If I had whale support...I wouldn't even use the bots.
And...your support and respect has priceless value to me...it makes a huge difference, regardless of the monetary value of that support @steevc
Yea, that was kind of the point with this one. I only recently discovered that bid-bots was the primary factor in what was hitting the trending pg, and also... more interesting, that many of the bigger players i followed and enjoyed content from where also using them.