The trending page for most tags is overtaken by the use of voting bots, and I've decided to stop feeding the system
I've used voting bots in the past and my returns have been negligible in terms of ROI, usually because the price of Steem falls in the time that I've paid for the upvote. But beyond that, any actual payout feels somewhat cheap because I've paid for the visibility.
For the most part, my involvement with voting bots has been to lease my SP to bot services like @minnowbooster or make fulfill loans on its marketplace. The payouts from making loans is easy passive income, and it's a very alluring tool to make additional Steem without any effort required.
But I've been ruminating on something that @kennyskitchen discussed at the Steemfest Q&A portion of Anarchaforko. Kenny's issue with utilizing these bot services is that they centralize power into the hands of the operators by giving them a large portion of payouts just for renting out their SP. And as a result, they also corrupt the trending page.
Voting bots have turned the trending page into a bidding war
Powerful voting bots were an inevitable development within the platform. Steemit allows users to turn their SP into a income-generating asset, so it's no surprise that people are taking advantage of this fact.
However, as a result, it has made the trending page a total joke much of the time. Reflecting on how things were just a year ago has made me realize how this aspect of Steemit has brought down the visibility of quality content.
Instead of making passive income through leasing my SP, I'll be utilizing it to support projects and authors I believe in. I wrote a post about the value of utilizing auto-voting services to consistently support authors and earn passive SP in the process, and that will be the extent of how I utilize bots for the foreseeable future.
I don't want to sound self-righteous or mean to shame anyone else who still making Steem from these services. Obviously, we're all here to make money one way or another, but if the content continues to delve into a bidding war it is not going to help the longevity of the site.
And for that reason I'm discontinuing the use of upvoting services for the foreseeable future.
If you received value from this post, I would gratefully appreciate your upvote
My Latest Posts
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