I joined Steemit Chat yesterday and immediately noticed a trend in the #postpromotion that I can't help but talk about because it speaks to the very foundations of this new system.
We've already got Whales, Dolphins, and Minnows...so I suggest adding Beavers to the mix. You've seen them around. These are humans who immediately upvote your post.
I watched a guy, we'll call him ScienceFictionAuthorGuy post a link to Chapter one of his Steemit novel. Within 30 seconds Eager Beaver had followed the link, scrolled to the bottom of the page and upvoted the content, returned to chat and said "@ScienceFictionAuthorGuy Hey, I upvoted your content!". While this might seem like the behavior of a bot, this was someone I'd had a conversation with a few minutes prior. This Beaver was eager to get an upvote in return (based on the number of times per 3 minute period he was posting a link to his post).
This is fairly standard human behavior, Reciprocity. Doing something for someone in hopes they return the action. It's not an altruistic act, or particularly creative. These kinds of exchanges are less social and controlled ultimately by the resource or favor being bestowed.
Steemit is a system and a system has three parts. Elements, interconnections, and a function or purpose. We are all clear on what the elements (content) and the interconnections (upvotes, comments, views, etc) are. However, there is a schism about the function or purpose of Steemit as a whole. This is an ideological battle I see being played out on the front page and in the backrooms of chat.
For a lot of people this system's function is make them a shitload of money. Maybe not even a shitload, maybe just enough to feel like they can get by.
For other people the purpose of Steemit is to share their content. The payout is a nice bonus, but more a secondary feature.
These are two radically different goals. Systems can get into trouble when they are set to seek out of the wrong goal. Bots, and Beavers are feedback loops that drive the system in a certain way. They technically follow the rules of the system, but they shift Steemit away from it's creative content-sharing core and into another thing to autonomously mine. The cultural creatives get discouraged and move on to the next thing.
I don't write for bots, I write for humans. It makes me sad and angry (sangry) when the only views my post gets are from the autobots.... but it's even worse when a human has decided to shut down their appreciation for value and perform automatic actions.
Be careful with your vote! Don't confuse going through the motions with seeking the right goal. Take the time to read a post or consider it before you automatically upvote it. I would rather my friend's save their votes for posts that speak to them and further their goals for this system than some generalized reciprocity.
That being said... hey, buddy, can I get an upvote? ;)