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In the past I have been very vocal in my anti bot stance. I was of a mind that my content earned whatever perceived value my readers thought it deserved. I dismayed every time I accidentally clicked on 'Trending', seeing posts that in my humble opinion were worth a fraction of the pending reward payouts.
It's clear that bots are here to stay and, like lots of other things, they are a tool that can and are abused. Therefore I started experimenting a few weeks back, throwing bids at bots through @yabapmatt's Steem bot tracker site. My opinion has indeed shifted. If I can afford to invest in myself and my account, getting an average of 10% back on my investment, I would be crazy not to. I don't look at it so much as post promotion because honestly I never bid that much, but the increase in my rewards is welcome. As an added bonus, the bot votes increase the curation rewards of those organic voters I get.
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Another thing I was most vehemently against was self-voting. I preferred to spread my votes among friends and great content, supporting my fellow minnows. As you may know, I recently took out a loan to be able to afford flights to the US for a Writers' Block meetup in Gatlinburg, TN. Again with a view to backing myself to grow my account, I have begun throwing votes on my own posts. Initially, it felt icky but I have to think first 'how I am going to pay back this loan?' and second 'how better could I support fellow authors on the platform if not by increasing my vote value?' If I could afford to invest money into Steem, I would, but that is not an option for me.
Does this make me a hypocrite? Possibly, given my previous thoughts on these matters. I would be interested to hear your opinions.
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