I have written two post recently where I believe that earning STEEM on the blockchain is moving from content creators to entrepreneurs here and here.
I consider this a positive thing because entrepreneurs make the blockchain grow with the development of apps and tools and also give investors a reason to invest and a place to get ROI on STEEM besides blogging and curating.
Content creators will earn a little less STEEM while we are in the transition period towards SMT's.
On one of the articles I made this graphic explaining how I see things.
This is a question I received regarding this graphic and below it my answer.
The question was regarding voting bots or promotional services and how I feel about them.
After writing that comment I thought about it the whole night.
I think the two biggest arguments people have against voting bots at the moment are:
- Anyone can promote content to trending (wether it's good or bad).
- It takes away rewards from other content creators.
But there are also positive arguments to be made, namely:
- Voting bots give investors that don't want to blog or curate a tool to make ROI (return on investment) and therefor a reason to buy STEEM.
- It locks up SP so it can't be sold on the market.
- It gives users that want to a tool to promote their content. (And remember: You don't make money using a bot even though the payout might be high).
Voting bots rely for a large part on delegation and the fact that people want to use them to exist.
Now the fact that people want to use them with a negative ROI (again they are not profitable for the user, only the investor) to push their content already tells me they have their place on the blockchain.
But let's say you wanted to end them somehow.
How would you go about it?
A possible solution is to ban delegation all together.
No delegation, no voting bots (except for a few big whale accounts).
But that causes a problem because a lot of projects also rely on that same delegation to exists. (dtube, dlive, dsound, utopian.io and more).
I rather not see them go I think they add tremendous value to the blockchain.
So that's not really a solution.
Another solution would be to somehow ban people from using them.
I'm not in favour (if this was even possible) because I hate to see restriction of freedom on here.
Personally I see a much simpler solution (and I'm not even against voting bots).
A solution elegant and very much in line with the blockchain of opportunity.
Simply come up with better ideas or projects that need delegated SP but offer a greater return on investment than a voting bot.
You will then see all that delegated SP flow to these new ideas and projects and the 'problem' will be solved.
Pretty simple right?
But until that happens Voting Bots have their place.
I talk about it more in my vlog.
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If it was more lucrative to identify and upvote excellent content before it hit the quadratic curve to the moon, (collecting a share of 50% of the payout figure), than it was to delegate to bidbots; they'd all be retired tomorrow.
But that's none of my business.
I'm not a fan of the delegation function myself.
When I first joined, the idea of site as it was presented to me was that you would buy more STEEM to gain more influence.
This created a demand for STEEM and gave an incentive to power it up.
With delegation, however, what's the point of buying STEEM with your money when you can just accomplish the same thing by brown nosing the right people for delegation?
You mention that apps and projects such as dLive, dTube, etc. require delegation in order to function, but in the real world, you always invest and take a risk with your money in order to start something.
People save money, or go to a bank to take out a loan.
This risk motivates them to work hard in order to make a profit. Whenever you don't have skin in the game in capitalism, you don't work as hard as you can. This is a fact.
And with delegation, it's someone else's skin in the game, which is probably why none of these apps have really fulfilled their potential.
This is not to say there aren't good guys who have been delegated to, and who use their delegation responsibly because there actually are. But again: what's the incentive for these people to buy STEEM when they get all the benefits for free?
And why should we support a function that specifically disincentivizes the purchase of STEEM Power?
People can debate me.
But they don't. There were other methods for funding the projects - such as showing real development and improvements and receiving upvotes and donations. There is also the beneficiary option, where interface operators could charge a percentage of post rewards. The delegation to these projects is strictly for voting content in order to get people to use those interfaces. Without the chance of getting those upvotes from the delegated accounts, the interfaces wouldn't be used - which means that they aren't that appealing in the first place and probably shouldn't be receiving the delegations that mostly enrich the project developers without needing to deliver on promises.
Yep. There's no need to do anything when 1) it's not you assuming most of the financial risk and 2) you're receiving the rewards.
I would much rather see real developers create something actually wanted or actually useful/functional and aesthetically pleasing rather than see hideous, clunky, barely-functional interfaces mopping up rewards on the platform because STINC has diluted all other investor influence by delegating millions of SP to many different projects. And they don't appear to be slowing down.
So, crowd out actual buyers and holders of the token in favor of those who made no investments and don't deliver on anything other than the most basic of barely-functional interfaces. This is the current model for the platform's economic incentives. And we wonder why the place has become anti-social, why content discovery is so poor, and why the price only moves when Koreans are speculating or when the general crypto markets are moving.
Right now I'm buying Steem worth 125 ETH (+32k steem) and will transfer it to SP soon because I'm an investor and will delegate this to my favorite voting bot. :)
@joele I Like Your Style. Yes You can be an Investor on STEEM. #Steemwillmakeyourich
Delegate to few the same amount to compare ROI ;)
You can check @lavater delegations, he delegated to 7 bidbots with all same SP, and you can use this site to compare ROI https://www.steemdesk.com
Yup, Im doing it :) nasty boomerang, no negative ROI limit for vote buyers :s
For informational purpose: @tipu profit for 32000 SP
Yesterday 32000.0 STEEM POWER delegated or invested gave payout of:
25.237 SBD + 2.512 STEEM (44.15 USD), APR: 23.17% .
Delegation link: steemconnect - 32000.0 SP delegation to @tipu.
Please note the profit depends on STEEM price. The higher the STEEM price, the more SBD profit is being generated.That is a lot! Thank you for your comment. I would like to ask you to consider voting for our witness @blockbrothers.
Very insight full @exyle. Agree with you. Investors gain ROI with out having to produce or curate content. If they are making an above average rate of return; this one fact will lead to reinvestment and or additional investors joining Steem....Honestly if the services of the bots were not wanted. No one would be using them. But people are; with great effect.
Individuals, organizations, & companies try to use their resources as best as possible to accomplish their goals & or tasks. No one blames Pepsi or BMW because they buy commercial time during the Super Bowl. They have every right to to ad spend the way they wish. Funny how some frown down on those who use bots. It's an ad spend.
Thank you again. Have a lovely day.
Great post man and I agree with you.
Here's my opinion from a guy who uses the bots and even invests in them.
I consider them promotional tools and in no way think I'm going to make an ROI for purchasing one. If I get some extra views, readers, viewers and exposure...It's done it's job.
A big reason why these things even exist is because there is a market. We're told as minnows to come in here, produce good content and engage every day. We do that but rarely if ever get on the radars of the people that can help us with upvotes.
So instead of begging for votes, we purchase them to increase our name and get our content out there. Is it perfect? Absolutely not...But it arose because a need in the market place.
It's not fair to ask whales to sit around and upvote every minnow on the platform....So bots can do that plus give us exposure.
I love your solution too. It'll come from the blockchain and the more people see the potential here the creativity will shine through and things will get better.
For now, they are extremely useful for people just trying to get noticed and I know for myself, I'm willing to put in the work and have been here every day for 6 months now...I don't expect a THING from anyone here, so I'll use the tools that I can to help my account and name grow.
Well done .. good work
It is important to know the facts. Wonder what you do not know
Thanks for sharing this with us..
Very interesting video @exyle. I like how you offer alternative unemotional analyses of these things.
Pointing out that the people investing in bots would be unlikely to suddenly become curators is certainly something I'd not considered and I agree. I see no reason why they would.
I think @oracle-D has already come up with a model for entrepreneurs to make more on their investment than they would on bid bots but they would need a project first to do it. At least that is my understanding. 😊
Thank you. Getting emotional in crypto in general often leads to mistakes in my experience. It's hard to stay unemotional with any crypto but especially on this blockchain because the emotion is right in your face every day. Believe me, I'm not immune to it, but I try not to act on it.
Well you do a very good job of it in your reports I feel @exyle and your positivity is always encouraging! 😊
You know the bots for me as a new member on Steemit & Dtube dont bother me. Its just how it is cool once i get some steem going I can use them to help grow my influence here and spread my content further. h I am a content creator on a few platforms and it's always tough to get the ball rolling. It might not be as easy to earn rewards through creaton like it was a year ago but let's be honest growing a following and influence on Steem & Dtube here is potentially a lot easier than doing it on the already established mainstream platforms.
The key for content creators I believe is becoming part of the community, beyond just posting your own content to make money. How can you help others on the platform, you need to interact with other creators. Leave constructive comments like I am doing, You need to keep coming back and providing value in every action. Currently my votes are not worthy anything but I still take the time to curate and assign all my votes to posts that I think deserve it.
I however have the time to spend on the platform daily so I get if you cannot do that rather assign it and have it help someone.
But this doesn't mean you cannot succeed here without the use of Bots.
The number of connections I have made in the last 3 weeks by being involved in the comment section alone is amazing. I have started posting my first videos and yeah they are slow and not much happening in terms of upvotes. I know it will just take time for creators to notice my content is actually really good and it will spread.
Bots can help a lot but having an influencer like yourself (@ shoutout an account or resteem their content could have a much greater impact and it was all through actual human interaction. Building real relationships is kinda all I can do at the moment as i dont have the funds to pump into Bots. The content I create around dance and performing arts is already a self funded side project of mine.
Anyhows thanks again for a good video, I enjoy your insights and opinions.
Everybody must have freedom to do what they want (using voting bots,self voting, etc), which is the basic concept of Blockchain. No restrictions or authority to control anything!
@exyle I love delegation of STEEM and I want to do more of it. Especially more to STEEM.HUNT.................I like the Fact that we will get some Tokens from them...................Have a Wonderful Day my Friend.
I actually only use resteem services to gain followers. I see it as a small investment with the ultimate goal of obtaining a little visibility of my posts. I have bad experiences with voting bots (ethically, it just didn't feel right).
The feeling started when I realized that more than half of my followers are probably bots (man, I was so naive). you can imagine how demotivating this felt. You become skeptical. You see hundreds of posts coming back with the same message: how do you become successful on Steemit? Give me 1 SBD and I will resteem your post. How do you increase your visibility? Etc. Everything centered around one specific word: money. Money is what brings people together here. And then I ask myself the question: aren’t we creating the devil himself? Innocent looking 'likes' already have such a huge impact on society. Replace those 'likes' with the word 'money' and you get a very dangerous combination.
But then you realize that you only have a bad day and that a lot of good happens on this platform. You just have to use it in the right way. There are tons of creative, loving, respectful and smart people here. You just have to find them.
Haha great video it's not often I change my mind about something but I totally agree bots do have a place here!
@exyle Actually yesterday I used an upvote bot for the first time, I made a small project related to steem monsters a study of 1000 packs, one livestream from you also made it into the study and wanted to share it.
It took some time to finish my project and just to be sure it gets some visibility I used a promo bot.
Long story short, I had a fair chance to show my work with the help of a promo bot.
Exyle, my favorite Steemian/DTuber!! Another great video.
Thank you, man!
Thanks for this thought provoking post @exyle. It sure is a controversial topic. Voting bots are something that many are torn over. I can see both sides. As well as the Pros and Cons.
.
My voting power is low otherwise I'd upvote, however, I must say, this is probably your most informative post (that I've seen so far)! great video @exyle I appreciate what you do.
I agree with you! Voting bots have a place here on steemit platform until they don’t. I’m totaly against banning anything. Let the comunity decide what they want. People will eventually realize that in most cases they don’t get ROI by using voting bots or not. You made a great point about if voting bots get banned. Eventually someone else starts selling votes.
Actually, @Smartsteem bot has positive ROI, and they filter out scammers and spammer with their ratings system. It seem to be working for the most part.
Great Vlog Exyle!
About the Steem supply.
I remember you wrote about the Steem supply many times. The total supply and circulating supply. Are you still following this?
Are we making any progress?
I use bidbots just to gain confidence when I see my contents got at least more than 100 SBD...It was very discouraging when I post my best and got only few cents of upvotes.
I have been on this (these) platform(s) for just under 60 days. I am still learning how to work in them. I agree with you about the promotion bots. I don't even qualify as a minnow yet but I am earning over 30% ROI and getting exposure for my content.
Hi @exyle! You have received 0.76 SBD @tipU upvote
from @cardboard !
Delegate or Invest to @tipU to receive daily profit payouts: @tipU distributes 100% profit and additional 60% curation rewards to all investors and allows to automatically reinvest selected part of your payout.
I'm motivated to be good entrepreneur
thanks..
好好学习
How do you censor sh*t posts when you use bots? The votes are automated @exyle, would you intentionally upvote "such posts" judging the genuineness that the blockchain seem to portray.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not being derogatory, I just want us to be objective about this.
There has to be some censoring with the bots - my point of view!
Cheers!!
We have our own perspective of how to use the BOTS. And most people know how to use BOTS is for gaining STEEM POWER secondarily is to be a top rank to recognize by the other STEEMIANS...
And this is my own opinion...
And still, I am waiting for any person to delegate their STEEM POWER! So please lend me your STEEM POWER to have a huge "KAME HAME WAVE"!!!
Just kidding... LOL
Serious, I am still waiting... Even this is just a 15K is enough to get back the other who's stop using steemit because of hopelessness... But one thing they did not realize, it's not about an upvote. It's about themselves!
So, @exyle Lend me your POWER!!! Hahaha...
Sorry... I am really a happy and funny person to make all balance to remove all their stress and headache... (^_^)
Regards!
@kennyroy
I wouldn't disagree with you on your assessment of the model changing. The problem I see though is with so many new users on the platform the rewards are already spread even thinner than they used to be. Now add in the entrepreneurs taking their cut and there are going to be even less rewards to go around. It is too common these days to see so many people putting out great content but still getting small rewards. I think there may be a point where Steemit loses as many users as it gains due to fatigue and disillusionment. The problems is those users leaving will be real people who put out quality content and not bots.
Amazing conten creator star on trending words
All agree :) but its pretty hard to create income better then voting bots because all the money come frblockchain.
We need the money flow in from outside steem ecosystemem - like from ads for example.
Anywsy we have smart people here and I think we're going in right direction :)
Tipuvote!
If I'm honest, you do not have to use bots because you have very good followers either because of your high voting power or because they publish quality content.
On the other hand, I spend 5 to 6 hours doing research to be able to do 1 quality article so that my publication lasts 0.02 cents so I have to resort to bots so that my publication does not remain that way.
Here in steemit everything is an interest if you do not have a great power to vote no one follows you and that sometimes discourages me because I spend a lot of money in bots and it brings me a lot of loss because I do not like to see my publications in zero.
All agree :) but its pretty hard to create income on steem better then voting bots because all the money come from steem blockchain.
We need the money flow in from outside steem ecosyst - like from ads for example.
Anywsy we have smart people here and I think we're going in right direction :)
Tipuvote!
I appreciate your outlook and insight on this bid bot topic. Have a wonderful day!
I do think they have their place here too, and I do use them sometimes.
What people need to have is self-awareness, don't be promoting massively trash content. It doesn't make any sense to ban bots, what we can try, as a solution, is maybe a tighter control on what type of content can/should be upvoted. (and that requires hard work).
If bots were banned, the believers in STEEM blockchain would keep upvoting themselves and between each other, and many others would leave the platform and take their profits.
Hi, I,ve not have enough time to serach for good posts. But still would like to earn curation rewards. How could i Do ? please could you explain voting bots or delegation ? I'm 67 old and don't have programming skill. Thanks
My posts are easily the best on the site. Every post is pure gold more precious than the last.
lol, smart!
Hey @dan-bn,
this post explain well the curation rewards system. Curation isn't easy if you don't have time to curate manually and find the best content.
If you speak french, I have written a long and detailed post explaining how this works (maybe you can use google translation). I would suggest you to have a look at http://steemworld.org/ to check some authors that just curate as you wants to do. But my advice is not to follow the big accounts like this one or like the one I have seen you are upvoting. Because they are already followed automatically (with https://steemauto.com/ for example) by so many people that you probably will not gain anything. Try to find small accounts that are upvoted by Dlive/ Dtube / Dsound for example. There, you will be able to make good curation rewards :)
You can also ' rent ' your SP by delegating it to people... It's a great business. But I wouldn't recommand that since theses people generally have ' no limits ' and self upvote their shitty post all they long to get back the money they put to rent the SP.
If you have any question, don't hesitate to contact me,
Bye!
Hi, Dan. If you’re still around, I have something you may be interested in. It will keep you voting your full daily allotment of VP and earning curation rewards without needing to delegate.
I know you were on my voting trail in the past with Streemian. It’ll be pretty similar to that setup.
You can reply to me here or find me on Steem.chat (ats.david) or on Discord.
Good
I like the video thanks
I actually only use resteem services to gain followers. I see it as a small investment with the ultimate goal of obtaining a little visibility of my posts. I have bad experiences with voting bots (ethically, it just didn't feel right).
The feeling started when I realized that more than half of my followers are probably bots (man, I was so naive). you can imagine how demotivating this felt. You become skeptical. You see hundreds of posts coming back with the same message: how do you become successful on Steemit? Give me 1 SBD and I will resteem your post. How do you increase your visibility? Etc. Everything centered around one specific word: money. Money is what brings people together here. And then I ask myself the question: aren’t we creating the devil himself? Innocent looking 'likes' already have such a huge impact on society. Replace those 'likes' with the word 'money' and you get a very dangerous combination.
But then you realize that you only have a bad day and that a lot of good happens on this platform. You just have to use it in the right way. There are tons of creative, loving, respectful and smart people here. You just have to find them.
@exyle,
I've just read an interesting conversation between @penguinpablo and @crokkon in his latest report.
It seems people edit 1.3 times their comments and that means the amount of comments is less than we thought.
I agree - there is a time and place and that times now. In the future though, bots won't be looked at as kindly
they are not profitable for the user
I'll vote for this project
well good content always find its way to the top automatically with time but bid bots aren't going anywhere and never will be
I think I just voted for you to be witness. I don't know. This shit confuses the life outa me. Should I use an upvote bot. Which is the best one to try and gain real followers and get my content out there. I'm getting disheartened at the min aahhhhhh I'm trying like mad lots of hours editing to not really get anywhere. Ah shit. Doesn't matter I'm going fishing.
cool video. delegation also allows new users with no steempower to get started!
Very interesting point of view. I think people just starting like myself will learn a lot from following you.
I agree to all what I have heard of this post. Entrepreneurship in Steemit is something we cannot considet as negative effect in the blockchain. The investor is what we need to pump the price. The dapp built on top of Steem is the one supporting the content creator together with voting bots. The ROI in bid bots is good and one of the good reason why people invest their money to accumulate more steem power to earn more
https://steemit.com/english/@ericausaury/4-tips-to-channel-your-anger-into-positivis
Minnows can earn money to pay for bots. Bots like @dustsweeper are pretty cheap and necessary with that .02 payout threshold.
Fair point but because it's automatic through delegation it has become a lot easier to do so.
I believe the solution is already worked on in the form of SMT's. With 1P1V and oracles. I see this period now as a transition period until SMT's come out. It's a rough ride for some of us. But when I think about this blockchain 3 years from now no-one will remember this period. Just like almost no-one remembers n^2 and just steemit.com. People will just earn SMT with content creation and trade them for STEEM.
I don't call it helping the minnows. I call it a tool to promote content. The tool has a negative ROI (in general).
I think the problem now is that investors have now been shown a better and easier way to earn ROI. Not everyone likes to curate. I don't think it's realistic to think that investors would all of the sudden start to curate when you increase the incentive to do so. It's just to much work.
Again I believe SMT's will solve a lot of these things in the future and I can't wait for them to come out.
I completely agree with you @exyle. This is common fight between capitalist and socialist/communists. Investors have invested their hard earned money from some other activity here and so they need to be rewarded. And system does not stop a persistent quality content creator rising to the top but obviously not in a day - As Rome Was Not Built in a Day.
What will give those SMTs value?
this is the million dollar question @cardboard and because the answer is so complicated I have absolute confidence 80% of SMT's will be shitcoins.
I believe im being generous with the 80% too, because in the ERC20 world the number is closer to 99%.
What needs to happen, what should happen, is that a community, or a business that launches an SMT does so with a demand proposition along with it or you are simply creating a little pump and dump shitcoin.
For example, lets say someone creates an addictive game (hopefully what steemmonsters becomes) and they sell the cards only, exclusively for their MonsterCoin-SMT then, if the game is awesome enough, this would create demand for the coin from day one.
Since steem is the portal sort of speak into buying the MonsterCoin-SMT this also creates a demand for Steem.
I imagine it would flow something like this (assuming we don't get a fiat to Steem option)
Fiat -> BTC -> Steem -> MonsterCoin-SMT
At eat stage there is speculative gains to be made, thus keeping liquidity inside the markets.
Now, I'm not saying this is what SteemMonsters is going to do, I just thought up an example of how an SMT could potentially generate its demand.
Thank you for the answer! Tip! 2
The good thing with SMT every token is liquid and has value even shitcoins, you can exchange it back to Steem. :)
That is potentially accurate... I don't have any details pertaining this, but I would assume a bot would be setup to guarantee liquidity. Ver much in the way SBD and Steem interact.
Source:
https://steemit.com/smt/@steemitblog/smart-media-token-development
Hi @meno! You have received 2.0 SBD tip from @cardboard!
@cardboard wrote lately about: Steepshot #Clouds Feel free to follow @cardboard if you like it :)
Earn daily income on steem: @tipU distributes 100% profit + 60% curation rewards to all investors.
This is what I've struggled to grasp with SMT's. From what I understand, you--the website owner or whatever--has to fund up the SMT for your users to adopt. I can't see this going very well on SME's whatsoever.
The hope on this one is that it is aimed squarely at the top tier social communities attached to publications and the like. I'm not convinced that it is a product that is something they need.
Good question. Thought about that a lot too.
Considering you can tweak the SMT's to your own desire it's basicly up to the entrepreneur to add value to them and give people a reason to desire them.
I think we will see a lot of use cases we can't even think of today.
If you just see what people did with only one token so far (STEEM) I think it will be an awesome sight to behold.
And, for me, there are even more scenarios of negativity.
From the outside, it starts to look like you can push a certain kind of post at a certain kind of quality and garner a certain level of reward. In reality, you find that most of the perceived reward is already spent in buying the votes that make it up.
For people coming it, it suddenly becomes disheartening when you realise that, actually, no, what you see on the Trending page is not a reflection of the system. You're not going to be making $800 for going on holiday and whacking out a few pictures, you're not going to be hitting trending by making a Steem evangelical post... not without dumping in a whole load of investment at first.
Why should these investors looking for ROI care?
Fundamentally, they are invested in the ecosystem. If the ecosystem grows, then their ROI grows. However, if the big front page advertising to the outside world is a false promise full of trash, then it is more likely to harm the ecosystem in terms of users, adoption, bad word of mouth. Suddenly, that ROI can be under threat. Everyone here who is very much "well, let's just be hands off and let everything manage itself" could find the ecosystem they are invested in under threat.
All I can say is that I have been here for 2 years and not once have I made a any decision about my actions here based on the trending page.
There is so much opportunity here for the people that want to take it. Some will and some won't.
Personally, I don't go anywhere near it. There is nothing there for me. But it very much is the front page of the website for non-users.
It is the "this is the content you will read, these are the rewards you can get" advertisement to prospective users.
This is on what basis they function..
And this is how they pitch it...
Both quotes took from the same post of a bid bot owner.