Sort:  

In the early days, there were no bidbots or vote selling, so people had to curate manually to earn curation rewards. Manual curation was amazing, because both curators and authors earned, and with the upvote came more motivation and encouragement for the authors as well. During these days, people voted on good content. High quality content.

That being said, circle jerks obviously existed during those times too, but it was by far a much better place to be during those days. Authors who put in time and effort was rewarded. Some obviously more than others, but authors strived to produce quality content to a much larger extent compared to today.

@hitmeasap thank you so much for taking time to explain. Yes, seems they are golden days. Hope this bots will reduce after coming 50:50 split.

Posted using Partiko Android

there were no bidbots or vote selling

Just cause they weren't public and free for all like they are now doesn't mean they didn't exist.

Well, that's obviously true. Let's say that public vote selling/buying didn't appear in the same extent, and that manual curation therefore were the way to go.