I don't downvote because I am afraid of retribution! My account is so small my payouts could be wiped out by a 1% downvote from those I feel like downvoting. It seems to be a tool that only an elite group can use. The gnats (I prefer "gnats" to "mosquitoes") are hard to ignore even though they are harmless.
Yeah, it's a concern for sure. I don't blame you owasco. I've had some blowback from it the past few weeks I've been downvoting and someone tagged me on their post today calling me a thug.
Tbh I can't even bring myself to enter into the drama of explaining to this person how if I'm a thug for downvoting them, them they're a thief for using a bidbot. It's difficult because a lot of people don't understand the basic fact that the daily reward pool is a limited amount, so by them boosting their payouts using bidbots they're literally stealing from everyone who doesn't use them.
I've been on here for just over 2 years creating only high quality content and spent many depressed days because my 3000 word short story made a dollar or two. All this time my chances of getting honest, fair curation based on quality has been diminished by vote buyers as most of the whale steem power has been locked up delegating to bidbots. This is now changing, and I think it will level things out as time goes by.
This is why I have no regrets about following a downvote trail. If people don't want to learn how the reward mechanism works on steem, and want to continue stealing from everyone else, they deserve what they get. What's ironic is that those who are creating decent content would have a decent chance at higher payouts in the long term if they stopped using bidbots. I think there are only 4 or 5 bidbots left operating. Not sure if I'm right about that though.
These are just my thoughts on it all. I was getting ready to leave steem if the EIP didn't work. From what I can see so far, it's going in the right direction. Time will tell.
I'm not even sure what a bitbot is. I don't know if I'm using one. I know I never paid for upvotes, except sbi which I just started buying as a contest sponsor. Is sbi considered a bidbot?
Thanks for that explanation of the rewards pool and how it is affected by the bidbots.
I still have so much to learn! It doesn't help when big changes come along and pull the rug out from under me.
Haha, if you don't know what a bidbot is and you've never bought a vote you are safe ;-)
P.s. as nicky said in a perfect world the powers that be would go after the bidbot owners... and the people purchasing the votes wouldn't have to worry because their would be nowhere for them to purchase them, but we ain't in a perfect world... mores the pity.
SBI is safe owasco. I wouldn't worry too much about it all. It sounds like you have been doing exactly as I did on steem when I arrived and just acting in a decent way.
Far too many people on this platform have seen the exploits and ways to leach value and thrown the moral compass out of the window in the pursuit of money.
Just like the outside.