I'm going to die laughing. You didn't understand anything I said. To say that you aren't here for money and here only for content is an absurdity. The reason we are here is because we can be compensated for the content we produce. If you were only here for the content you would disable the rewards for everything you post, however, you do not. The fact is, if you want rewarded by not only being seen but also voted for you need to use the tools available to do so. As of yet, I am to be impressed by pay for bots. We will see what happens as I have tested the @steemtools on two of my posts.
We, as content creators, are in constant competition against people who plagiarize and steal media from other sources to post here as their own to be rewarded. Being seen and being upvoted is an important aspect of growth for good creators.
How often do you flag poor and clearly stolen content? How often do you use the "promote" option? These are tools to use for us. This is only another option in shameless self promotion. And it absolutely is a competition; you are competing for viewer, for votes and for digital currency. All markets are competition. This is no different.
So I should just grab as much as I can, in any way I can, as long as I personally consider the content to be worth more than I'm earning?
I never said I wasn't here for the money. I said there's a system by which that money is to be distributed. Circumventing that system for personal gain is just as immoral as posting something that is worthless or stolen.
How is it immoral to use the tools that are available? You are not circumventing anything. These bots are a part of the system. If you use "promote" you are using a bot because a bot will come in and upvote your promoted content.
Using a tool that is available to everyone is not morally equivalent to spamming stolen content.
Using the promote tool is nothing like using a bot... There are no official bots. These are accounts set up by users.
When you spend money to promote your post, it is destroyed, decreasing the supply of the currency, which is intended to increase value. The whitepaper laid all this out for everyone, but since it's not a "rule", no one cares about how this was all intended to operate. Steemit has become a game of "who can get the best ROI?"
It would be really hard for minnows to make it anywhere. 93% of steem is already owned by 1% of users. A junk article getting submitted to an upvote bot should be discouraged and naturally unprofitable. If a quality post gets submitted, then that will give it more visibility and ability to go viral. It is necessary and profitable for both the upvoter and upvoted if the content is quality. And users will be able to see the quality content easier. From my perspective, it is necessary.
Taking away the ability for different types of upvote bots would hurt the ecosystem overall.
I think my point is still being missed. So because Steemit is "hard" to get started, everyone should just disregard how it was all set up to work in the first place until they've started making money?
Every time I argue my point, it just seems like I'm being told left and right that I should be trying to profit off the system instead of using it the way it was intended.
And if that's the case, what's the point in even creating quality content? If you're not going to follow certain guidelines, why follow any of them? I could have written a bot months ago to rape the reward pool for everything I could get out of it, but I didn't, because I'm what you call scrupulous.