A friend of mine told me to check out r/videos today. Since I barely browse Reddit anymore, pretty much cause of reasons which I'm going to be talking about in this post, I don't really know what's going on there that much lately.
My main Reddit activities lately consist of logging on, checking r/ethereum, r/steemit and r/cryptocurrencies and then I go back to Steemit, steemit.chat and discord and suddenly its time to head to bed again.
On top of r/videos right now is this video of a user claiming to have bought upvotes to get on top of the subreddit. Here is a screenshot showing him being there with almost 13k upvotes.
He seems pretty chill about it, directly confesses that he has purchased the amount of upvotes that lead to his submission becoming top on the subreddit for "not even that much money". Watch the video.
If this comes as a shock to you, I have to let you know that this is something that has been going on on Reddit ever since it became "mainstream". As someone who lurked on Reddit in its infancy, then created an account 6-7 years ago and watched it grow I can't help but feel that its something that is ruining the site and for me personally at least has made it a "what's paid for and what isn't" on top of the public paid ads which have gotten more and more complex over the years. As you can see the ad on top of the screenshot is about blockchain because Reddit knows where my main activity is when I browse it so the ads are targeted towards my interest no matter on which subreddit I currently am on.
Buying votes, comments, accounts and other Reddit activity has been something that's been happening behind the scenes for many years. When Reddit became the corporation it is today I somehow saw it coming, it wasn't much about "what is the best for the readers and users of it" but more of "what is best for the shareholders of the company and their monetary gain". Which mostly consists of ad-revenue.
Now don't get me wrong, ads are normal on pretty much any site. Although Reddit didn't have many of them back in the day and instead used the "buy reddit gold feature" to support their server up times and costs, they started becoming more and more. Many lack proper vetting also, there's been tons of times I've had to report scammy ads to Reddit moderators that have been targeted to the crypto subreddits. Of course I can't put the website down for showing ads, everyone is doing it! There are ads on TV, Radio, most of the internet, everywhere outside you go and even people are becoming paid advertisers nowadays.
There is a huge difference though between ads that are public and you know you are currently watching an ad and ads that are hidden pretending to just be content that the majority enjoy. These "clever" ads have been becoming more and more popular over the years probably because they show better results than the usual ones which people have started getting used to.
There is a big market for these as well, and not just for buying upvotes that people in countries with a great imbalance in their economy work for to provide. There are even markets for Reddit accounts that have a good history and positive "karma" which is their point system. I take back when I've said that my 100k karma is "worthless", cause apparently there are advertisers paying top dollar for these to use them for hidden advertisement.
Here is a quick google search on buying Reddit Upvotes:
My point with this post is not just to bring down Reddit as the money hungry corporation it has become. Most of the other giants are very similar with vote/like buying and other attention markets that users and other corporations can purchase "behind the scenes". After all these are a big issues because of bots becoming better and better over time to pretend they are real users on social media sites for monetary gain combined with actual real users that do this for a living in countries where a dollar is worth a lot more than a dollar in other countries.
I also wanted to talk about the major differences between the usual media sites compared to our platform. Which is transparency.
Of course here on Steemit one could also pay someone "behind the scenes" to advertise their company or product on their account. This is probably already happening, some authors mention that its a paid advertisement while some may not. This is though one of the main ways you can advertise on Steemit. We don't have ads that generate ad-revenue which only "the owners" gain from like on the other ones. For people to advertise here it will either cost them a flat-rate or it will cost the authors publishing these voting power of their already earned/bought Steem Power which in turn most of the stake holders profit from either by the value of Steem increasing or even earning curation rewards from voting up advertisement.
Steem Power is the main thing that makes Steemit and all the other front-ends that will pop up later different from its predecessors. Every user that has a stake of Steem, either earned or purchased, profits from advertisement being published on the platform.
A transparent blockchain makes it so much harder for the "bad" advertisements to have a fighting chance at tricking people into their scams or shady products. The majority of the users decide what gets viewed the most and what doesn't and they all have an incentive for that to be the best of the best since they all are affected by owning a stake in the ecosystem.
On other social media sites we can't know. We don't see every upvote or like and where it originates from, we can't tell what is really an ad and what isn't and neither will we ever get to the bottom of it most of the time. This is the power of transparency in blockchain technology.
I used to love Reddit back in the day, I was fine with paying for Reddit gold on great submissions and comments knowing it goes to server upkeep and other expanses. I was fine when they started adding ads to the sidelines and top of the subreddits. I was fine when they started increasing in frequency cause I knew it was just ads.
I am however not fine knowing that maybe 50% of all submissions that are on "top" of most subreddits might or might not be advertisement and not user controlled content.
While I was typing this it seems his account got suspended.
I was going to mention in the end that it might have just been a ruse and he maybe didn't really buy upvotes but the Reddit hive-mind voted it up to the top anyway thinking he actually did, but with the suspension it might be true.
As I mentioned in the beginning of this post I haven't used Reddit actively in a long time, much of what is written here may not be 100% true and a lot of other stuff might be missing. That's the way I view Reddit lately though and for me it was the best platform for many years before I stumbled upon Steemit. I decided to not even bring in Facebook much into this and how their system works cause that would keep me busy for a few weeks and I'd probably have to write a 100 post series on everything wrong with it today.
It's an upsetting paradigm that's developed. I can't speak to the percentages with any accuracy but I'm sure the number of users who do this is quite high - and I understand the draw, as the real life benefits of a front page post can be massive sometimes, and sometimes even result in non-reddit media attention.
If I was a multi national corporation doing this, I think it would behoove me not to simply buy 10000 upvotes - but, and i'm sure this happens, buy just enough to get the eye of the average user and then let the reddit hive mind pull it up the rest of the way.
Whatever the extent of it, the hidden nature of the "advertising" is unnerving, if not inevitable. Unfortunately Reddit doesn't really have a short term profit motive to stop such services as they no doubt draw further attention to reddit.
now, call me a conspiracy theorist - but after watching the video of the guy who bought upvotes, I think the banning of his account feels less like the righteous banning of a vote buyer and more like the suppression of a dissident, as his video seems to have been intended to expose rather than profit.
Very interesting stuff. I left Reddit years ago for similarly shady reasons, right around when the whole "upvoat" thing happened. Censorship, shadow bans, obviously political agendas, editing users posts to change the context of their comments, etc.
Oddly enough, on my recent tax post I found myself googling "buy reddit upvotes/karma" too while I was examining the possible taxable value of upvotes/karma and FB likes.
The current top comment sums it up pretty well.
For real - suspending that guys account is about the worst possible PR response as far as discerning users are concerned.
Haha! Thank you for sharing this with us guys! It's priceless!
Very interesting post! I've seen some websites that have been selling Reddit upvotes in the past, and since that time I've always been skeptical at the content that actually gets upvoted to the point where it reaches the /r/all or the frontpage. I think Reddit has got so big that many people or companies are doing this regularly, but at least Reddit seem to ban the people they find out about.
Anyway, thanks for posting this analysis of the "Addit" situation :)
Hello @acidyo how ads in internet,
More specifically, they're ruining many ad-supported websites. Any time I visit an ad-supported website these days I almost always have to sit and wait for a minute or more for all the ads to load before I can even start navigating the damn site. It doesn't seem to matter how spec'd out the device or how fast the connection. I get the feeling even if I were browsing on Google's quantum computer with a gigabit connection these ads would still be a problem.
I understand that ad revenue is what makes the internet go 'round, but when your ads are making your site nearly useless it's time to rethink your strategy. Having people just click away from your site because they think something is broken or they just get tired of waiting probably isn't in your growth plan. Until they can be coded to use a lot less bandwidth, not having video ads is a good start.
That’s the exciting prospect of the attention economy. Advertisers must pay their audience directly. There’s no gatekeepers, like FB or Google, to get rich selling our eyeballs and time.
Iteresting and kinda sick that people have let it gone this far! It's all about money in the world we are living in.
Btw if he reallt bought the 13k votes and if he bought them for the price you googled, that would mean he payed $3894 for the votes :D
He must be an early bitcoin investor. :p
He probably paid for the first 1k and the users took care of the rest. :P
Hello from a Steemit newbie! I had no idea about Reddit - @creutzy who introduced me to Steemit told me about Reddit too, and I see more from you on this post, no idea whatsoever. It sounds like it used to be a cool platform which is now being bought out... :/
About this user though... really now?! I mean, I don't get why would anyone do that. He's not even promoting his work or anything... Plus, do we know the exact reason his account got suspended? Is it because he was arrogant and offensive to the platform or is there another reason behind it?
Now, about the ads... Oh dear... I think that's the most annoying part of the internet and social media right now... and the thing that 'it knows' what I searched for and shows me the equivalent ads is actually creepy - invisible digital stalkers....
So, since I'm in the blockchain and into cryptocurrency - trading and all- for more than 2 months now, I think I should read more articles like this to understand better what's going on around me (@creutzy can't be my tutor forever, come on! haha) Maybe I should switch to Reddit and buy upvotes, what do you say @acidyo ? :D
Have a great weekend and may the Steem be with you ;)
This is a great explanation to help many people understand the differences and how some of those sites are pretty much just run by big money.
I just discover there is a new browser call Brave
https://brave.com/
It is quite effective in blocking ads and stuff, maybe you can give it a try later on~
It will block the regular ads, but I don't think it will help much against people who buy upvotes.
Interesting post, mate and cool guy this BigG123. Not really like PikkuG :)
LOL :D
Great article! Seems that more and more all the social media platforms are becoming bland ad infested censored hell-holes. I think it's the reason more and more crowd-funded projects gain steam, as alot of people get fed up with it and decide to invest directly. It's probably the reason cryptos started getting traction too. But I'm a newbie and wish to learn more, so please correct/ inform me if/where I'm wrong.
I don't have a problem at all with how Steemit has the promoted posts! I think paying through the site is a great idea to get your post more visibility, but paying for upvotes so it rises to the top seems wrong!
I have never been a big reddit fan, but check it out every now and then to see what's going on.
I prefer Steemit over it times 1000!
This is a great answer to a question I had as a noob just one month ago. Why is a social media site on blockchain.
You answer that with a key insite. Full transparency. That is going to have very very high value in the future, compared to the BS happening behind the scene on other social media sites
STEEM could go to $10.
Thanks for your notes.
If you have a minute to help promote steemit for other causes, please read attached and let me know if you can help
https://steemit.com/steemit/@davebrewer/opioid-crisis-in-america-is-growing-exponentially-here-s-one-way-our-steemit-community-can-take-action
I agree with your words but what will be the use of internet if it does not run the ads. No one will blog because there are no ads, why people will invest their time and get nothing in return. So I am in the favor of ads system. Even youtube will collapse soon if it stops displaying the ads. Ads are all important, they also make us aware of the new services, products or policies of the big companies in the world. It is only by the ads we come across new companies.
You'll always going to get this when money is involved. It just goes to show that you can buy anything. It's exactly the same on steemit with buying votes.
I'm still active on Reddit every day, for the crypto subs and Polandball. I don't see a lot of ads compared to other sites, maybe because I don't live in the US. Outside of the popular subreddits, I don't notice a lot of fake upvotes - maybe I'm naive :) The most annoying thing is the karma farming bots that are copying parts of popular comments and posting the result in the same thread.
By the way, I think the number of fake accounts is much worse on Twitter. You can buy followers, retweets and likes. And Twitter is struggling to show a high number of active users to their advertisers and shareholders, so they're not eager to remove fake accounts. Users feel flattered when they're followed by spam accounts, so they're not likely to complain either.
Woww that so good video and info, Thanks
I love it
This is an eye opener, however, I love Steemit transparency. Why not post green content? Why solicit for upvotes? It is not worth the effort, I guess!
@acidyo reddit is as ridiculous as a Pumpkin pretending to be a Watermelon. I think we are giving them free market right now.
steemit is very fast growing social site i help people to grow with the opportunity to make steam that really awesome keep it up
Yeah things always end up going this way. I think Steemit is just the natural evolution for social media.
"We don't have ads that generate ad-revenue which only "the owners" gain from like on the other ones. "
Just an FYI I think there are some people in steemspeak trying to do this actually with the main goal being to extend post rewards beyond 7 days on viral posts
We don't have ads but we do have the same issue with buying votes! It's already been happening with whales selling upvotes in auctions! I think it's almost impossible to stop these things...
But at least its transparent here on Steemit. You can easily go to anyone's wallet and check if they are buying upvotes or not.
That's true although not necessarily as people can make anonymous accounts for upvote purposes but either way, it won't change the fact that ultimately everyone is going to have to pay to get their post up trending. The rich will be able to speak up as usual...
thanks for sharing
OMG!! I didn't knew about this thanks for sharing this.
hope steemit won't be the same in future
i am glad to be part of a growing steem platform and am not missing reddit.
Thank you! I am not really good in this but everything is rather clear
I have never used Reddit but that principle in itself seems wrong and if I was a user, yes it would definitely annoy me... its completely skewed and it takes the "reward" out of achieving a top status by actually EARNING it!
thanks,it
Reddit is quite strict with who posts what so the ban isn't surprising.
the rich want to be the richest and the poor will pay for that
This is very articulate. Although I don't know much about reddit
I really dont like ads on any social media it distburbs me a lot , sometimes the ads dont even make any sence.
Upvoted and resteemed
I do not quite understand how all of Steem's users get their share of advertisements? Theoretically, only the user who posted an ad on his blog receives the advertising fee?
I think you're right on that Steemit's lack of ads makes it more resistant to shitty content-boosting. Plus the fact that SP is expensive, so there's no good cheap way to "boost" posts up the ranks.
On the other hand, there is absolutely nothing stopping major corporations from buying a large slice of SP and using it to self-vote themselves onto trending...
I was going that way with my thoughts to. But the community does frown upon circle uhhh votes. And honestly, there are enough of us to see a problem and propose a hard fork before it became harmful.
Right? I hope...
I've personally never used reddit but have loads of friends who do. They use it more than anything else. They're always showing me stuff at work on reddit. I've mentioned steemit to no avail. Kinda baffles me but to each their own I suppose. As for ads..... as long as they're out of the way and not having me click them to remove them from being in my way I don't mind. It's when they become a nuisance to what I'm doing that I mind.
thanks for that info... i will bear that in mind
This is one of the reasons people have turned to Steemit, buying votes and other means of engagement to manipulate the system is totally immoral and unethical. ''Voting'' should reflect on the quality of the content and never be bought like advertising.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@matuca/survey-on-steemit
I haven't been as active on reddit lately but I would believe it. There are lots of sources for paying for upvotes on reddit... and I'm sure something can be found on fiverr. At least on steemit, if someone is abusing something, flagging is an option to get a post unseen.
true
Don't understand dis whole thing o
That is why today I use almost exclusively Steemit.
Great post my friend.
Upvote and resteem
@arifulsms
wow... That is, every other major post on the internet is fake. If I look this here, Then I feel this.
Thank you @acidyo.
As Reddit is a competitor os Steemit.....Steemians appreciate the updates you give from time to time.
One hopes we will not see ads on Steemit.....however to allow one to buy ones way out of it by becoming a Gold Member is rather telling.....somehow they cannot sustain their site without adverts.....lets us hope Steemit does not choose to go down that road.
Ghostery is a browser that assists in blocking ad content....have you heard of it.
All the best to you and 'O.C.D'. Cheers.
NB...The fractal whale for O.C.D is lovely....and the concept of O.C.D is a great one. If bleujay can assist in any way.....please advise....there are several new comers in bleujay's sights with great potential. Cheers.