The growing use of bid bots has stirred quite a few reactions and arguments, both pro and con. Sometimes the opinions become quite radical, especially from the side of people who would like them gone.
I'm not sure I would call my own position neutral, but it's been probably unusual so far. For example, I have delegated SP to two bid bots for profit, but at the same time I tried to look carefully at the bots I delegated to, so they meet some quality standards.
Also, I haven't used them to promote my own posts, which, of course, means my posts have less exposure than they could have (probably a higher reputation score too).
So, are bid bots good or evil in the steem ecosystem? Let's see if I get the pros and cons right for the use of bid bots.
Pros
- they can easily boost a small account's exposure and reputation score
- they are often the only way for getting your post to the trending page; otherwise only highly established accounts (great connections, whales) would be on the trending page.
- they can be used to attract more upvotes, because curators will want to upvote before bid bots do, for the boost in curation rewards
- they can be used for profit, if you delegate SP to them
Cons
- users who don't use them will have to work harder and the more bid bots are used, the harder it will be to grow without them
- trending page has often little to do with quality, and users can promote low quality content via bid bots
- curators have less incentive to find quality content, if they get easier rewards by tracking and upvoting the posts of users who use bid bots regularly
- if you delegate SP to a bid bot, it will upvote the posts of bid winners, and those may be a crappy posts or something you wouldn't upvote manually
If this wouldn't be such a sensitive topic, I'd say it is funny how each argument looks either as a pro or a con, depending on the side we look from.
It is argued that communities might reduce the influence of bid bots and increase the chances of small users' posts to be noticed when the communities are built on common interests.
The hivemind project is a much awaited upgrade, so let's wait and see. I'm pretty sure all parties will have reasons to be cheerful, and, as always, to complain also.
P.S.: I might not be able to post for a few days. But you never know...