Delegating to Bid Bots

in #delegation6 years ago

As many of you know I used to be against bid bots for the longest time. As they've come to grow now and a lot of SP is locked up on bid bots being used to advertise your posts and get attention on the Trending and Hot sections and it is made a lot harder for users to earn rewards for their content.

Although it is not something I personally like and I don't think its helping to decentralize stake a lot which is one of the main strenghts of a DPOS system in my opinion, I have decided to delegate my own SP to a new bid bot that will work differently from the existing ones. There will be more news about the bid bot coming soon but I just wanted to write this post quick for my followers.

I will still be curating like usual with the delegation I have and as long as I have it and supporting the @ocd project once it has started again from its current summer break.

I am hoping that there will be a change soon in how curation works as lately everyone wanting to curate has been in a big disadvantage to those selling their stake to bid bots.

It has not been easy to hold on to your stake for this long, trying to do what is good for the long term health of the platform and sacrificing rewards while most others are just maximizing theirs. Although I don't really prioritize money as much as some others do, it is not just about that. It is also about the future stake and influence over the rewardpool, knowing how many are earning so much more stake through SBD, whether they are just dumping it or using it to power up to have a bigger influence over the pool in the future but having been the first to drop curation or self-vote 100% to maximize gains is not something I am feeling reassured over that they will do what is best for the community in the future.

Anyway, there is a big announcement coming up soon and I hope the community will appreciate what we have been working on lately to make bid bots and at the same time holding Steem Power better without the need of middlemen taking a cut.

I could probably go on for hours about everything I see wrong with the current system and how its rewarding a lot of people that shouldn't be rewarded and how change is needed but I wanted to keep this short. I am sure most Steemians are aware of the same problems at this time.

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excellent initiative and very correct analysis.

Very interesting. This is a little timely for me as myself and a small group of others have decided to stop using bid bots. It is kind of punch in the gut to watch your rewards drop so much because you aren't using bots anymore, but it also makes you realize how artificial the gains were on those other rewards. Even though I may not utilize it initially, I still look forward to hearing more about your bot as things progress. It sounds like you have a plan that will be counter to typical bots. I will definitely be checking back for more info!

Great on you for quitting, feel free to use the #nobidbot tag. There are ways to make it without joining the bidbot bandwagon

Thanks! I will try that out for sure!

I think you are right. There are other ways to make money. Although I think for most newbies those ways are quite difficult and take a lot of time.

That's basically why I still struggle whether to use or not use bid bots? The con is that I don't think bid bots should be part of Steemit. The concept of promoting your content doesn't work like that.

The reason why I'm thinking about using them is that I can really earn money. At least I think so, cause so far I only did a very tiny test. But it sounds very nice to earn 10 times as much by using bid bots then writing posts/comments.

What do you think about my dilemma?

Well, you know, it's because in the end the only people that really benefit are those that go big on bots (advertising) and those that delegate and collect the fees. Everyone else is just bouncing money off a forcefield giving themselves an illusion of growth. I need to make my actual analysis post, I keep putting it off.

Nice analogy of the force field. I think the rewards are deceptive. I am only about a week in and it has been rough seeing my post rewards drop from $10 to $20 to $1 to $2, but like you said it is kind of a sham. You are really just moving SBD around to STEEM at a loss. From now on I am going to shift my focus back to powering up. Building my SP to be able to give back to others seems to be my best bet.

I am very curious how this bot will differ from the others. I do guess that it will be a mixture of a bidbot and a flat rate bot.
I am for curious because you don't like the idea and still decided to do this.
I can understand that it must be frustrating to see others raking in the rewards, while the most genuine people are struggling to climb on the Steemit ladder.

I will also delegate to a bot, but first I will need to get my own steem power to 500. The bot I will be supporting is a whitelist bot supporting the steem betting community. It cast out upvotes to people writing about their bets and keeping records of these bets! (@sbcbot).

But like I wrote above, first I need to strengthen my own account. Because the more power my account/vote is, the more I can support the ones, I do feel which deserve it!

Cheers,
Peter

Just found this post, wanting to learn more about bots here in our SteemIt Community. Thanks for writing it @acidyo.

As is apparently the case with you, while very new to all of this, I have been skeptical / suspicious of bots, in general. Given your apparent influence, looking forward to learning / hearing more.

Now following you and have upvoted and resteemed your post!

On the move ... Posted using Partiko Android

Yup its much new points in it i learned little bit new

Hello @acidyo

What can I say here? Don't even know where to start but the fact that it took you this long before delegating your SP means you really meant well for the platform and that's why you were able to held this long. I wonder what will happen when the remaining few good guys decided to delegate theirs as well. Maybe oh maybe, we, minnows, will all be knocking on your various inboxes begging for your blessings by anyway possible, or entirely leaving the platform for all you big guys. It is really unfortunate how things are deteriorating here.

Regards

@eurogee of @euronation and @steemstem communities

I'm new to steem? What is delegating?

Posted using Partiko Android

Visit steemit.com and read frequently asked questions (faq) section. Thanks.

When I joined steemit, I had similar thoughts. Bots seemed like something that completely undermined the value of steemit.
But I've come to know, that if you haven't invested in steemit, the chances of you getting recognized are close to zero.
Bots at least give you a chance imo

I don't believe you're selling out. It's adaptation and totally natural. Maybe that makes me an unpopular person sometimes, but I've learned through experience that if you're forced to play a game you didn't sign up for; you're best option is to win it.

Often I feel sad that so many are sticking to their guns and remaining predictable, meanwhile those who just don't give a damn will be even more in power... in that very long run that everyone is hoping towards, that I don't think (personally) is ever going to come by way of this strategy. I don't think there's any need to be polarized. It's perfectly rational to make circumstantial exceptions.

For instance, there are some bots that are just destructive only. The bidders lose, Steem loses, even the one's selling their votes don't make much. And then to boot, they have no filters. Then there are bots that are much more centric, and small groups that "act as bots" that are really run by smaller accounts making direct voluntaryist agreements off the blockchain. I don't think that's harmful in any way, they're minnows or dolphins. Each contract is individual. We just can't blanket judge everything because everything doesn't do the same thing just because of it's title.

I similarly feel about self-voting, if you're not a whale taking $500 for a meme, it's just taking a loss for nothing. Meanwhile those accounts will keep on doing that. The thought is ADMIRABLE, however, things are changing. The blockchain is becoming a multicoin, multidapp interface. How can we change the direction intended by every power that be? It seems like a battle lost for pride sometimes. Where do we draw the line between ethics and ego?

I am not judging what you choose and I look forward to your announcement.

but I've learned through experience that if you're forced to play a game you didn't sign up for; you're best option is to win it.

Everyone thinks they're on the path to winning it, but in the end we all will lose (if everyone goes that way). But yeah, that's not happening yet, but this is a slight concern without further information about how the stake intends to be used.

I have no concern, personally, for how another grown adult spends his own money — save they intend to physically attack someone, rape, bomb, etc.

That said, Steemit is not what people think it is or was. Find out now or later.

Lastly, I how a person behaves in their banking space, even though it may effect my fees, if I'm their friend or their fan, then I feel it would be very self centered of me to imply that I'm only his friend because he falls in line with my investment agenda.

So yeah, agree to disagree, no offense.

Yeah it sounds like we will have to agree to disagree. I don't think it's what you think it is either.

It's actually in everyone's best interest to make the platform attractive to both users and investors because one cannot survive without the other. Just food for thought.

Well, I'm not sure where you presume I stand. But you're right, I don't have everyone's best interest at heart. My heart is just not that big.

Further, we cannot make "this" platform anything. Steemit.com is just one browsing interface to the entire blockchain, and Steemit Inc has decided what it is going to do already with condenser, and thus what the results will be.

In addition, post-SMT, there will be THOUSANDS of new coins and dapps and users absolutely flooding this blockchain with all types of uncensored content.

None of the proposed changes involve the dynamics that folks have claimed are unfavorable to everyone, which means specifically them. So competition for the reward pool, capitalism, free market contracts, bots, self-voting, vote-selling, and more will all continue well through HF20 — except it will be 1000 daps and 10 Million users.

And my entire point is, that I'm a fan of @acidyo's content. I'm not a fan because of how his choices effect the Steem in my wallet. So if he wants to make a bot, I'm going to use it.

I feel smaller accounts (redfish, minnows, dolphin) are wisest to use this present pre-fork opportunity to power up as quickly as possible.

You are right. I only want to point out that self interest activity is not sustainable if everyone does it. That's what makes this all painfully.... Hum. I don't have a word for it.

But I don't think that's a reason to simply give up on calling out the behavior. Being silent is worse than being predictably against certain behavior.

And also I am holding my breath here a bit because I don't know the details of this new fangled bid bot. I imagine it's an inch better than the status quo though.

Whatever you wrote here is definitely a candid statement. Your following statement is a pragmatic approach towards a problem.

I don't believe you're selling out. It's adaptation and totally natural. Maybe that makes me an unpopular person sometimes, but I've learned through experience that if you're forced to play a game you didn't sign up for; you're best option is to win it

Seriously I dont think the bid bots are helping much lately. Whoever wants to promote a post need to invest at least 100 SBD to be visible on the trending page. The most of them are even used for the wrong purpose and post that dont really need to be promoted. I had good experience with bots 6 months ago, but now everything is changed. Hopefully things will get better in the future.

System needs to re-partition
Happy to hear news like this
I hope to fulfill my desires
Thank you for the great information

Looking forward to see what kind of bot you create, one that is programmed well might be able to help out a lot of minnows on the platform.