For the last couple of weeks, I have been conducting some very scientific tests on steemit. VERY scientific. The first week I wrote a post and asked for human commenters. I upvoted it myself. I mentioned human commenters... YOU are the bread and butter of this test. Please leave a comment in a human way to help me find out if I am a genius or a common thief and bringer of the apocalypse.
Here are the results from week #1: (https://steemit.com/steem/@allcapsonezero/testing-testing-is-this-thing-even-on)
upvotes: 13
human readers: 4
payout meter: 0.81
actual rewards: 0.011 STEEM, 0.352 SBD and 0.191 STEEM POWER
Week 2 (https://steemit.com/steem/@allcapsonezero/testing-testing-is-this-thing-even-on-part-2-vote-bots-in-play) is a little more grey area-i-er. I used 20 SBD on 4 vote bots to 'promote' the post. I have used vote bots before. Lots. I always thought it got me noticed. I decided to test it against my week 1 post. Here are the results:
upvotes: 16
human readers: 6
payout meter: $51.29
actual rewards: 19.705 SBD and 6.653 STEEM POWER
I paid 20 SBD so: I made approximately 6.4 STEEM POWER (ish... don't make me do all of that math)
Grey area-i-er?
Yes, good question. I had 6 human commenters and one robot who creates audio versions of posts. Of the 6 commenters, 2 of them read the post before the big robot threw down the big bucks. That makes it pretty much even. To make matters even more grey, the post-vote-bot humans are regulars. We are aware of each other already. We talk. We upvote. We comment. In one instance, we talk face to face. I also got a comment from @trasparencybot 's doctor/creator/human sponsor. I kind of invited him to my post and as such, him commenting had nothing to do with vote bot usage.
My conclusion is therefore not really too conclusive on one hand, and super conclusive on the other. It looks to me like spending 20 SBD on bid bots did nothing really for my visibility (super conclusive). I can't really conclude that using vote bots does not increase visibility if a post makes it onto the trending or hot page, but in order to test that, I would need to spend more SBD. (Which I will do at some point).
One thing I can conclude on is this. If you want to create Steem Power for your wallet. Using vote bots is a very lucrative practice. I spent 20 SBD and got 19.705 SBD returned to me as well as 6.653 Steem Power. I could spend that 19.7 SBD again and create a perpetual Steem Power generator (see what I did there? Pun-tacular). At the current price of Steem, my second post paid me somewhere in the ballpark (this is crypto, this number is not going to be consistent over the week that this post is relevant) of $20 USD. Compared to week 1's approximate $1.65.
That is not professional writer pay, but it is not too shabby for 45 minutes of "effort"... I am speaking of week 2's results.
What does all of this mean?
Well, spending 20 SBD on vote bots did not make me more visible. It did make me more money. So, I guess I cannot claim that I am using vote bots for visibility anymore (at least at the 20 SBD level). So... if you catch me paying a vote bot 20 SBD... ... I'm mining steem power.
Nice segue.
We can talk about armaged-steem. (I just made up that word). It is a term for the greed induced downfall of this platform. It could be a microcosm of the coming actual armageddon, which would be the greed induced downfall of our civilization (which could happen a few years after steemit goes down).
Is "mining" steem bad? If I knowingly pay 20 SBD to vote bots knowing that they don't do anything for me except pay me better, am I killing steemit? If a whale does the same thing by upvoting his post because he wants to get paid... is he killing steemit? Is this, what some people say, what people are choosing to do with their stake? These are the questions we need to be asking. Do we care? Is this a grab all you can and convert it to BTC while the getting is good party or is this a sustainable make some friends that last a lifetime sort of party?
Can it be both?
I am actually asking you these questions. I NEED YOU TO COMMENT IN A HUMAN WAY so that I can continue my research
Week 3's test: Resteem services.
OK, so 20 SBD on vote bots didn't do too much for my budding professional writer's career by increasing my readership, but it did pay me ok. How about these resteem services?
What I am going to do this week is pay some resteem services to get my writing out there. I don't have a lot of faith in them because they just churn out articles on their feed every day... all day. I wouldn't trust their judgement. You can't think someone who tells you to watch a movie because they got paid to recommend it has good taste in movies. Can you?
Wellllll.... that question is essentially what this weeks test is going to answer. Does anybody actually follow a resteem services suggestion?
The rules. I am writing this article just like the last few weeks. Bare bones, no picture, 45 minutes of "effort". I am going to upvote it, just like the last 2 weeks. I want to have all variables the same except for the one we are testing. This is science, not just some dude in his underwear typing on a computer. Science.
So, please comment. You are the most important part of this experiment. I can get a million robot votes. They don't matter like you few humans on steemit. I need to know if you saw this. I need you to let me know you read it. I need to hear your thoughts on if using vote bots will bring the end of steemit and if so, is it a bad thing?
I will use no vote bots, only resteem services.
See you all in a week with the results!!!