Then why do you continue with the bid bot in the first place?
Exactly. It's like Churchill saying "Yeah, we colonized and ruined half the world, but hey - at least we didn't start World War II or perpetrate the Holocaust."
I will of course not blame voting bots opportunistically exploiting a broken system, but it is nevertheless a corruption of the social network as it was intended. Indeed, I admire voting bot managers for their resourcefulness. The same way I admire scammers like Frank Abagnale or even the infamous Charles Ponzi. However, voting bot owners should accept that it's a corruption, instead of pretending to be altruistic - they are not in the slightest. Maybe some are less corrupt than others, but that's not even a backhanded compliment at this stage. Whales and large SP delegation recipients were meant to curate engaging and popular content, to build the network and make it accessible to the mainstream. The curation rewards were meant to compensate for their efforts, plus a much higher price that would be the result of the network going mainstream. Unfortunately, with bullshit that makes even 4Chan look quality trending regularly, it'll never be mainstream. It's heading towards being the next 4Chan-like cesspit, and regular, sane folks stay away from insane shit like that. If you really give a shit about Steem, instead of lining your own wallets, that's what you should do with a large amount of SP delegation - CURATE. Curate, not sell. Imagine how much better Steem would be if those millions of SPs and 10-60 hours weekly were actually used for curating popular content.
Unfortunately, I don't have a solution. A social network with money involved is probably inherently a bad idea. Greed will always take priority over social interaction. Worse still, being decentralized means scammers can not only get away with unethical acts - they are actually incentivized to do so. Over time, what would be unethical is normalized, and that's what has happened with voting bots. The banality of evil. Mind you, I'm not dumping on Steem here, it's become something else quite different from the original intention. It can still a valuable market and can succeed with SMTs and such incoming. It's highly undervalued (relative to other shitcoins), and I will continue to hold Steem. But in its current form, it'll simple not be a good social network (except in some moderated niches when Communities launch).
Getting rid of SP Delegation will not really help. Ex-delegators will just follow votes instead, and scripts can easily track how much voting % is going where and how much curation reward is generated by each different followed account. Not as easy as SP delegation, but the effect is ultimately the same; and the effort is well worth the exploitation of the Steem network for personal benefit. Increasing the voting target to 40 will make it worse, as that incentivizes the people making tons of votes - voting bots in this case. Same for superlinear - the voting bots command a vast majority of SP, they will dominate even more with prior protocols.
So, yes, I give up. I have no solution. The idea of a decentralized social network with money involved is inherently flawed. Well, I do have a solution, but people here will hate it. Yes, it involves governance.
RE: Fighting spam, dealing with losers, and why no one gives a fuck