Why do people use Bid Bots? Profit is a motivator for some, but with the advent of the clever SteemBotTracker it is getting harder to milk the Bid Bots for profit. The most legitimate use of the Bid Bots is for Post Promotion. In a sea of often-rubbish content it can become necessary to use Bid Bots to get your post in front of a few eyeballs and potentially just buying your way to the trending page. We even have some of our most prominent witnesses admitting that we need to use Bid Bots or the shit-posters win. But was STEEM designed to be used this way? What if there was an alternative way to promote your posts?
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This is the question I have been asking and I believe I have at least part of the answer. Small communities have been forming and building on STEEM for a while now and we have started to see the emergence of new types of Bot. The Subscription Bot has emerged, where a set fee is paid (often per month) and the Subscription Bot will Upvote each subscriber’s posts from a pooled Delegation. It is still a form of post promotion and for the most part it still has a profit motive, but it does encourage subscribers to post regularly to get a return on investment so there is an improvement there – Subscription Bots are encouraging regular content creation.
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Now take one step further and we start to see what the next evolution might be – I am calling it the Not-For-Profit Community Subscription Bot (yes, ok the name sucks but it does describe it). The idea here is that a growing community gets a few volunteers together to set up a Subscription Bot for the express purpose of supporting its community and NOT for any individual or owners profit. Ok, so I just heard a thousand clicks as many readers who made it this far just closed their browser in disgust, but if you’re still reading – Thanks for hearing me out.
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We already see a great number of minnow and dolphin users here on the platform going above-and-beyond to try and build and support their communities and they do it for no personal gain. They do it because they love their community members and/or they love the thing their community is built around. There are a lot of passionate people here, whether it be for a love of photography, flowers, cryptos or any number of diverse interests, it doesn’t really matter what your community is built around. If these growing communities can get their act together and start building community bots to promote their members, all of a sudden we don’t need these Bid Bots any more. If investors are given a choice between Delegating to a Bid Bot for a % return (which includes the for-profit Bid Bots profit margin) or Delegating to a Not-For-Profit Community Subscription Bot for a potentially greater % return and the extra benefit of encouraging actual community building and value-adding content to the platform – It’s a no brainer even for the shrewdest investor.
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All of a sudden we get Steemians who are lining up to join communities who share common interests instead of spending money to feed Bid Bot owners and trying to go it alone in a desperate attempt to hit the trending pages. Does that sound like an evolution for STEEM that’s worth believing in? It is for me. I am sick of watching people fighting for scraps on this platform like seagulls fighting over a chip. If this place is ever going to realise its potential and fulfil the vision of its creator(s) then the communities here need to step up and get their act together to start supporting each other. To me it’s just common sense.
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The current situation with the upvoting bots is ridiculous and it can't continue like this for ever. I am sure that Steemians will come up with creative solutions. The idea you proposed here is one such solution. However, I think it still needs more refining and polishing.Thank you, @buggedout.
It will be interesting to see what the impact of communities is as well, when it finally arrives. I can't imagine there will be a "shitpost community", but then again, who knows.
Thanks @choogirl I think it's an idea thats time has come. Some of these circle jerks we see could possibly be classified as shitpost communities but they'll probably need to stay in the shadows or they'd get exposed.
Yes. Why not? I like it.
In fact, @qurator works in a similar way. You have to pay a subscription and they will upvote you. You also have the option of delegating steem power and you will receive a better upvote. The big difference is that they only ask for a unique payment... then there is not much funding.
Yes, I am familiar with qurator and I view it as one of the premier Subscription Bots that has emerged.
They rely on Delegations and Upvotes for ongoing funding. The unique payment is for purchasing membership.
I guess if we're talking a Steemit where we have to have any kind of bot, the 401C3 subscription bot would be my choice. I'm going to be that guy, though, who holds out hope against all hope (we're talking the stupid odds kind) that humans can regain the platform.
We need a Neo (one that doesn't die at the end of the trilogy, preferably).
If we have better curation, do we get better posts? If we get better posts, do we get better curation?
It's the classic chicken or the egg conundrum. Where do you start? Where does it make the most sense.
I think you and I have had this discussion before. I'm on board with your earlier assessment that we need to better incentivize good behavior. I'm still looking for the answer, but I think I might have found a lot of it in abh12345's curation and engagement leagues.
If a lot more people knew about them, I think it would do a lot of good. I've already noticed it helping me in that I'm looking outward much more than I was. I don't know how much it's helped with rewards, but I could also be smarter in how I go about things, too.
Anyway, my $0.02 for the night, for what they're currently worth. :)
Currently worth a lot more than $0.02 I reckon :)
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I share your sentiment but the inner pragmatist (or cynic) says there is a strong profit motive here and automation is an efficiency that is hard for humans to overcome. All systems are flawed, which is why they need to evolve along with the participants who try to use them (or game them for advantage)
I am also a big fan of @abh12345 and his curation leagues. I was a regular Top 3 performer before the peg broke. He does a lot of good work unacknowledged, but it is guys like him with a bit of vision that give us at least a slim hope for the future.
Just got through reading the steemitblog update on Hivemind and communities. Sounds like they're nearing completion on v. 1.0. Didn't give an exact date for implementation, though. Have you seen the update? I noticed it mentioned something about community bots. :) I of course rolled my eyes.
I have to admit, I don't follow a lot of that type of stuff. After working in software development for decades I am very wary of holding out hope for vapour-ware that over-promises and under-delivers. I'll have a good look at it when (if) it comes out. In the meantime I like to work with the tools available rather than sit and wait and hope :)
Sounds like the best attitude to have, really. People who have been around much longer than me have been waiting for it for a year (or at least knew that it was in the works for that long).
I'm sure there will be 'bugs' to work out regardless, just because there always are. At any rate, I thought I'd point out that it appears bots will be be part of the code when this drops, at least to some degree.
Not sure what community bot is supposed to mean, other than it sounds like something communities would use and potentially benefit from as opposed to something an individual when only access, like what predominantly happens now.
If they can solve issue around holding the master key for community bots and have it held in escrow that would be great. But on skimming it, it just looks like a new API for existing functionality.
That sounds right. I think dragosroua's post about it came to the same conclusion, though he said he'd have to see the API in order to know how it's implemented.
Lots of potential changes to make things better or create havoc and greater discord (and I'm not talking about the chat kind). 🤔
I hear you !
@buggedout Thank You for clearing the BOTS situation UP. What I try to do is interact with anyone that makes meaningful commentary on my posts. Some of the Bigger Steemians that I follow don't even interact with their commenters. Make the effort to interact and STEEMIT gets better everyday..............
You are absolutely right. Lately I've barely found the time to write, let alone interact, but I do always try to respond to meaningful comments. Its the down-cycles like these where we need to get back to basics and remember this is supposed to be a social media - not a get-rich-quick scheme :)
Here I am almost 2 years later and I am not rich in FIAT, but I am RICH in experience and I have a little Wisdom. I enjoy so much what STEEMIT has to offer in many different ways. I think over the next year to two years people that are here now will not believe what the value of their account will become.
I can dig it 👍
Steemit can be A sea of garbage for a minnow who cant afford to invest real fiat into steemit makes resteem and upvote bots helpful for getting a few views but finding community within steemit is much more beneficial. Real viewers, real votes real responses. Makes it a little more lighthearted if you atleast got a good conversation out of a low earned post
For sure, it can make a big difference even knowing just 1 person read it and found some value.
Thanks for commenting :)
Thank you for your continued support of SteemSilverGold
Thanks @buggedout - hope you will get some upvotes. My 400+ followers will like that too. Thank you