To Bid Bot Or Not To Bid Bot, That Is The Question
I don't think that bid bots are bad!
I think bid bots that are abused and run unchecked are bad. I think bid bots that offer ROI are bad.
Promotion should never be free, or you get the worse of the worse!
I have zero issues with people getting on trending organically, I want great post up there. I am strictly saying if you want to promote on trending you need to pay. If google ad words was free, google would have failed.
Honestly, who is anyone to think they deserve a free spot on trending? Regardless if you think your content is hot shit or not, trending space should never be free, ever. UNLESS proof of brain puts you on trending, it should never be free to ADVERTISERS, content creators that "earn" a spot on trending did not get it free, they got it by making content others wanted to see.
You can't put certain people on pedestals and say it's ok for them to use bid bots for free trending space but not others, that leads to Old Steem quicker than an elevator to hell.
So now we have this issue of people wanting to promote but they don't want to use bots because they run the risk of downvotes and negative reputation.
We have a burn to promote on Steemit called the promotion tab, but it isn't utilized well because people don't click a promote tab, just like they wouldn't watch a TV station that only shows commercials. Commercials are strategically forced upon us. That is how we should do it here on Steem, IMO.
So, what do we do? Well, I saw this:
These two users declined payouts, then used bid bots to reach the top of the trending page.
Which, to me means they wanted this post to be seen and did not want it to be downvoted. These users are promoting a game and blockchain products.
I am assuming they were being paid to promote these and, just using common sense I gather that they were paid more to promote the posts then it cost to bot it on trending. Trending space on a website the size of Steemit isn't anything to smock at in the "real world" of promotion.
And these people stayed on trending, no one downvoted them because why would they? Hell, this is amazing!!! I applaud this behavior! That is 200$ worth of Steem returned to the reward pool in just two post! (That is a nice chunk of Steem, esp at these prices.) This is an interesting pattern forming using the tools we have.
The more valuable our trending space becomes, the more Steem it will cost to get a post up there. How do we make trending space valuable? Charging for it! Duh! The community can dictate the price of trending space using our upvotes and downvotes.
So, you decline the payout and burn enough Steem, you can get and most importantly keep a post on trending for a while. You will be competing with trending, however; if you want to get the top spot you must pay more Steem then the highest voted post. If you really care for eyeballs to see your post, cough up some dough.
Now, I am not saying that you need to decline the payout and bot your post to the top of trending to avoid being downvoted. I do believe, however, if you bot your post to trending without burning ANY Steem, the community will happily downvote you, regardless of content. And that is because, as I said repeatedly, promotion should never be free, it can't be free.
I'd bet big on the fact that if you did a "proof of burn" on your bid botted post, where you burned, let's say 50% of the what the total cost was to promote the post by setting null as a beneficiary, (depending on quality, is it a pure ad, etc. enough to where you feel the community will be happy.) that no one (or few) would downvote your post, and if they did people like me would gladly counter.
Why? Because instead of being viewed as someone freeloading off inflation, you are seen as someone adding value to the ecosystem by making our precious Steem more scare via your promotions that burn Steem.
Hell, I would even buy your damn products just to make advertisers think Steem is the shit and want to promote more here. Of course, nothing really makes your post shine like a decline botted post or setting a high % to go to null, I must admit, that is some G shit, and if you are trying to sell something, looking balla is never a bad touch.
This is the free market at work, you want something from the market, be prepared to give something in return, that's called good business.
There you have it! I think bid bots are wonderful! BUT! Only if those bots are quality controlled and burning/returning lots of Steem! This is just me, but people who I see decline payout/null burn post that is botted to trending, I will support them and never downvote unless it is just blatant scam or illegal content, or if trending gets overrun by people paying to get ads up (good problem to have IMO). But if you “pay” to promote a product on Steem, you are more then whalecum and have my full support!
This is one of those situations where I wish condenser development was more responsive. Obviously the promotions page was a terrible idea, like seriously, whose idea was that? But creating a promotion system that works I think would be the best solution.
It's not some crazy rocket science, re-invent the wheel shit. There are plenty of case studies from the giants to learn from. You blend the ads in. Trending shouldn't be ALL ads, then regardless of whether they burned Steem or not, it will still be a place people don't want to go to. There should be a balance of organically trending content and promoted content, and the promoted content should be visually designated as such. Everybody wins.
Well said. Showing one post from the promoted section every 3-4 trending posts would work wonders.
This! Or reserve just one spot for semi-randomly selected post from promoted and the more was spent on promotion the higher the chance that this post will be selected. Obviously every trending website load/view would mean new roll.
With that solution you only get a few promoted posts that people's eyes will be on. If the posts are inside content creators posts. The way Google Ads work. Then the model scales. Because there are thousands of eyes looking at specific posts than the trending page. YouTube has a an ad post below a YouTube content creators video. It scales and works. Because people visit content creators more than they visit a trending page
Sure, something like that could be done as well.
We agree.
https://steemit.com/smartsteem/@smartsteem/new-feature-request-a-curation-review-by-burning-steem-and-sbd
We have control over what reaches trending. I was talking about the tools we have in place now, however if there was way to install a system as you describe, I think that would be cool. Right now, if people want to decline payout and bot their post, I am fine with it. If 100 people all did it and took over trending I would start downvoting what I didn’t want to see and upvoting content I did want to see. In the end we still, as a community, bid bot or not, have control over what we see on trending.
I find this confusing. If they are all declining payout so that they cannot be up or downvoted, how would you, to quote again, "I would start downvoting what I didn’t want to see and upvoting content I did want to see".
Are you saying that despite declining payment, the poster can still be up or down voted?
@nonameslefttouse came up with the solution almost a year ago. It all comes down to put the content creator first.
"Content producers come first. The ads and promoted posts should be tucked nicely inside posts as banner ads. That would give those who wish to promote their posts a much larger potential viewership, and the content producers would be able to produce content that can reach top slots organically. There are literally thousands of posts published daily. The ads should be inside those posts and the content producers should take center stage to attract eyes to the platform."
https://steempeak.com/@nonameslefttouse/turning-rage-into-the-soothing-steem-now-blowing-out-my-butt-as-i-mince-my-words-for-you-the-reader-of-this
You've got some things so wrong here Dan. I'm not afraid to say it despite the risk of being labelled 'old steem'.
By the way, just labelling an idea as 'old steem' doesn't make it bad. This is something I've seen more and more in the last month. Let's make one thing clear before I get into my thoughts on the whole trending and bought votes issue; new steem Vs old steem is just a marketing technique. It's not a fckn religion and I'm not a heretic, ok.
First off, bidbots are bad for steem. If we have a system where the only content reaching trending is that which people have paid for we're exactly the same as everyone else. Do we want to be Facebook? Where people get a feed full of promoted posts about crap they don't want to buy? I thought steem was trying to do/be something different? I know that's how it would become a huge success, by being different to all those jaded social media sites that take advantage of their users. Maybe I'm being a little over critical of the idea as people at least have the choice whether they look at trending, but newbies go there and look at it to gauge what steem is all about.
So, why do you deserve a free spot on trending with this post, if it reaches trending? Is that by virtue of the fact that you've got over a million SP and the support that this massive financial commitment garners you? By the way, I'm not pointing this out to attack you or your writing, I know you don't self vote and you write well... I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy in the idea that no one deserves a free spot. This is BS, plenty of content creators on here right now are getting big support by virtue of the fact they write about steem, and parrot the consensus opinion, or are cheerleaders for steem. From what I can see reading through all of this post, you are pretty much saying trending should only be for advertising and steem related content? Which they should pay for using bidbots or burning their steem, or both. I could get behind that if there were a page/section on all the steem front ends that showcases the varied tallents of steemians based on qualitive metrics; such as the authors post page reads and if curation guilds have voted on them. Then maybe whales/orcas/dolphins could trawl through this mythical place and reward those content creators of quality and create an honest steem USP. Here's why that is important.
I'm gonna lay it out with 100% honesty to you Dan, because I do respect the fact that you're one of the biggest fish here who actually seems to act with some integrity. Also, I want any newbies who may be reading this to understand how much the current narrative from many is pushing against the dream that they're here pursuing. From one steemian (me) who literally has a few thousand dollars in crypto which is all my wealth, to another steemian (you) who I'd guess is a millionaire business person, this is the draw for the average person arrived on steem; they see that some people are earning a decent dollar value from blogging/vlogging etc and they want to learn how to earn. It's that simple. That is the USP of steem, or at least it was always what kept me wanting to come back and I'd argue at 90% of steemians are the same. And you know what, that's not the problem. That's the only thing we have going for us over medium, patreon, Facebook etc; the combined monitary/social draw.
My point is that we will never have an honest organic trending section while bidbots and vote selling proliferates. People always come back at me when I make these points saying 'vote selling used to go on behind closed doors in private chat groups'. Well duh, of course it did, the difference is that they weren't businesses extracting large chunks of value to one person (bidbot owners who in the main don't produce any content of merit). It's super simple, if vote selling was shut down at source, we'd all be able to spend our free downvotes dealing with those voting rings and self voters who don't interact with the community at all. One less problem to deal with. I know I spotted a circle jerk within 3 months of being on steem and figured out it was all about those people having the same 10000 SP level. That was at a time where I believed in steem's (then) moto... 'be rewarded for your content'. But I remember being pretty disappointed to see that 'circle jerks' were seemingly the only way to find consistent success.
To be honest, I think we kinda agree here, although I'd rather see all bid bots gone, if only because it would make policing steem abuse easier. I could get behind a steem where the only promotion methods were none profit, either burning all profits, or on a constant growth cycle where all profits were powered up to grow the promotion bots account to give bigger ROI for bought votes, also with strict quality control. But even this is a stretch to not ending up being abused.
I'll end this comment with this thought; If seeing your content on trending is to be like buying a spot on mount Olympus, then who will go look at trending? To most content creators steem offers a dream, to actually have people find value in what they are creating, whether monitary or in attention. If we keep watering down this draw, if we keep shiting (pardon my language but I'm passionate about these issues) in their bed of flowers, then the stinc will drive them all away as they'll no longer buy into the dream. With no audience (market) there won't be anyone for developers, blockchain games or advertisers to sell their products to on trending. As I said earlier, if there was some type of page where only organically trending articles were showcased, and whales/orcas visited said page to help drive that steem dream and reward high quality content, then I could get behind the idea of a sold trending page. I simply wouldn't go near it myself. But that wouldn't be a big change, as the only time I've been on trending in the last 18 months is in the last week to use my free downvotes on overvalued crap content.
I hope this comment is taken in the spirit it is meant. As a counterpoint to what you're expressing. If it's taken as 'old steem' then so be it... as Monty python once said...
I always appreciate you speaking it how you feel raj808 and I reread what I put (wrote this at midnight) and I think I could have explained it better.
“Promotion should never be free, or you get the worse of the worse!
I have zero issues with people getting on trending organically, I want great post up there. I am strictly saying if you want to promote on trending you need to pay. If google ad words was free, google would have failed.
Honestly, who is anyone to think they deserve a free spot on trending? Regardless if you think your content is hot shit or not, trending space should never be free, ever. UNLESS proof of brain puts you on trending, it should never be free to ADVERTISERS, content creators that "earn" a spot on trending did not get it free, they got it by making content others wanted to see.”
We want new criticism, not old criticism. Criticism is good as long as it's not the old criticism. Not saying you are doing that above. Just pointing out the difference between NewSteem and OldSteem.
Steemit is a business social network, of course, if you want to make money then you have three options :
Steemit is not a social institution that helps those who have no money, Steemit is a business model that gives everyone a chance to make money.
To me, downvote is a business model disaster, instead, it should have the tools as a ban on my personal followers' list. This gives preference to those with Steem Power to control what they like or dislike. The bottom line is that the value of Steem depends on 1. Investors (those who have Steem power), 2. marketing (those who promote the Steem ecosystem ), 3. developers who build applications in the interest of Steem promotion.
I agree that this is a business and that we need to attract a large mass of users and investors.
I agree that it has to be paid for the trending page, everything else is a complete failure for me.
Yes it is, it is a socially aware platform that rewards users for Proof of Brain regardless of whether they have paid to play or not. Only the amount of reward differs.
@theycallmedan, @hatu always come up with very effective content which brings new world to explore and which adds so much Cryptocurrency Knowledge and project journeys too. And most importantly this kind of behaviour reflects that he is respecting the #Newsteem culture and he truly know how Bidbots are used. This aspect will be discussed to some extent but there will be a time when flow of culture will be adopted.
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well said,, i agree with the sentiment here, and especially that getting ROI to promote a post is not going to yield good content on the trending page.. #newsteem really is a breath of fresh air, and i can feel and see the tide is turning VERY fast.. these changes were SO needed, and despite getting a fair few flags myself, i fully support this new shift in the steem ethos..
I do buy vote of about 2 steem sometimes in order to get let's say. 0.30$ payout on it because I want prospective curators too see how quality the post might be and then vote it. What I'll never do is to inorganically trend myself. Because I believe that should be naturally instilled. I basically feel an action of burning steem while promotion is basically a bit about respecting the importance of the trending Pages. Like you said, no one is entitled to trend it isn't really a birth right. I Believe the community should determine who trend. That way there will be an Equilibrium or check really. In other words we're cleansing steem and we're getting there.
I like your approach
Definitely,I believe this as well, the community nowadays should decide who trend and even when there must be vote buying then there should be this equilibrium
I’ve been getting destroyed by downvotes fml
Over the last 2 years we've had a vote selling system where buyers get paid to promote, while sellers get to make as much as 100% self voting
Just take a moment to think about that.
Can this possibly be sustainable? Some magical win win with no cost?
If we pay people to promote on here, we're by definition ensuring that ad space on our platform is worth less than nothing. If stakeholders can take back 100% of their voting rewards, who's going to settle for 25% (back then) curating honestly? If very few are curating honestly, who's going to create half decent content? If very few are creating half decent content, then the only things left on our trending and indeed platform at large are ads and farm posts. How much would you say ad space on a platform almost exclusively comprised of ads and farm posts is worth? Less than nothing sounds about right.
The success of our platform depends on our ability to deliver a sensible form of proof of brain content discovery and rewards system. In other words our success depends on our ability to incentivize our stakeholders to curate in accordance with their honest appraisal of content (or at least delegate that job).
You can't have another form of staking returns, such as vote selling, that entirely out-competes honest curation without undermining our core value proposition.
Promotion shouldn't be in direct competition with honest voting. With NewSteem, everyone has the tools to fight promotion that's used in this way. We fight for the platform by making vote selling as unprofitable as possible, or at least less profitable than curating. Because if not, they'll be virtually no one left curating and we're back in the dark ages.
There's a place for promotion, and many ways in which it can be delivered without undermining our core proof of brain values. And while I have no fucking clue why official promoted posts are segregated into their own section to ensure that no one ever sees them rather than inter-spaced between real content, the economics of burning Steem for eyeballs at least isn't directly self defeating for our ecosystem as a whole.
Actually, you just said it all. Using bid bot is not an offence but when you use them to push post that are not what while it is unfair. Steemit community should raise up for this kind of abuse. It will run the community down to the grass if this kind of practice keep persisting.
Let Stop the Bid bot abuse.
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its mostly because you can't have vote selling out competing honest curation
otherwise, who's going to bother curating? and if not, who's going to bother producing good content?
if you don't mind I would like to join this conversation. I have been paying to promote a post written in Italian (language that not everyone can speak) and I have been downvoted by you @trafalgar probably because you didn't like what I wrote down in my post (assuming you do speak italian or you googled it). Is there a reason why we should stop paying to promote our posts? Please let me know as it costed me about 40$ having it downvoted.
The reason is you're not meant to come out ahead after promoting a post on here. The true value of your post is what its organically deemed to be worth by users of this platform.
This place isn't worth a thing if people are paid to advertise on it and sellers get higher returns than curation to support them.
For more information, read my main comment here https://steemit.com/bidbots/@trafalgar/pxcvtq
That's absolutely fine mate. I thank you for your time and your answer. I have given a push to my post in order to have more visibility for those that are following the Italian's community.
I had a read of your post and I do agree with you 100% if not 1000%. My query is... do we really have many whales (like yourself) having time to read posts and to give a real push for the posts that are meant to be pushed?! I see many whales delegating SP and VP to bots as you rightly said. Where is the point of having bidding system such as smart steem and minnowbooster if then this is not what others whales want?
I don't want to be in the middle of whales' war. I have used a service that was provided.
Said so I will stop using their services if this will create me problems and I will save even money ;)
A lot of the bidbots are feeling the heat
If they don't survive in their current incarnation, they'll likely pivot to something else like curation with smartsteem
I don't know how to answer what the point is for having them as I don't support them. They're a product of the market. If they're profitable, they'll exist, if not, they wont'. I'd like to see the latter because I think it's better for the entire ecosystem.
it is a good point. Now the problem is ... you might support or not them (you already said no) but if you downvote posts only because someone has used their system... you are just saying don't use them. I rather prefer having you happy instead of having you downvoting me because I used bidbots.
So sorry about that. But I will like to say this clearly I was downvoted sometimes ago but I think it was a mistake. If you actually write and compose a good article that everyone who read it will be educated and learn something new and outstanding you may not have to go to the extent of using bid bot or paying huge for little reward. Because I know sometimes when you use bidbot and pay them. You pay huge for it and yet you stay on top of the trending page.
I just followed you now. Thanks for participating.
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well my article was in italian so for a niche of users... I used the bidbot for having more visibility and I don't think it was a crap post even because there were few rows... wasn't just a picture and 2 lines of text
That's it. @trafalgar. I noticed that even the vote selling is very competitive to some extent when just for instance. I post an article not even up to Steemit standard. Yet I place close to 30 steem or 30sbd to keep it to the top trending page. That's unfair. Bad behavior.
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Are you on Twitter friend? Let catch up. Thanks. I l followed you on Steemit for a very long time. Love your work. Same username on Twitter.
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