I remember my own introduceyourself post about two months ago and I got 6 votes for it and two of the votes were from bots.

I remember that my mentor gave me some guidelines about making that as my first post and to include a real picture of me, some interesting facts about myself and to properly give credit to my images from the net. I poured all the skills and passion I got.

I got barely 10 cents. I was dejected because others that started the same time as I did got so many votes and comments. Was my introductory too long? Did I alienate people because it was too quirky? Did no one understand it? I wanted to stop at that point. I came because of the incentive that good posts would be rewarded and yet I saw what some people wrote and they were getting so many votes. Later on I would learn that they would use vote bots and have groups that would upvote each other.

Then a blow came that someone was bragging that even if he does shitpost he gets so many votes because he has so many followers and that he is on the autovote list of some whales and that he did that with a literal post of a turd. I immediately got out of that group and unfollowed that person. Don't really want to emulate someone like that.

I came for the promise to earn but I don't get anything. Most of my posts get less than 50 cents but it's ok. I no longer write to earn but more to heal. I write to pour out the darkness in my heart, I write to let go of my sadness, I write to get better. I write to hopefully get better in writing.

I am happy to have met some kindred spirits here and the freewrite community who aspire to encourage people get better and quality stories. I am afraid I am not photogenic, nor do I travel to exotic locales so photography is not really a good way for me to post. I only have my words, my stories, my feelings.

There is another person who is @shello who has been advocating for the stop of shitposts. I hope it gets traction.

Then there was this whale that may a post about 3 or 4 weeks ago that said he gets better returns in selling his Steempower to bots rather than commenting and voting on people because the rewards are a mere pittance of the return. That was the 2nd blow to me and it really made me want to stop but then I saw how some people reacted and took comfort that not everyone thought of using their whaler and being a mercenary of sorts to bots. There is still some hope.

The reward system is indeed broken and we must stand and curate, upvote and create meaningful comments and interactions. We need to stop being cynical and letting ourselves look at the number beside the name to dictate how we will react to the person. It is understandable though that some people will kowtow to someone that has a high Steempower because if they gain favor to that person their earning power is exponentially increased but there are so many planktons and minnows scrambling for attention. You see it on those that will comment that they followed you and ask you to follow and upvote them. A lot of people are desperate for some crumbs.

The reward system is broken. Yet I do not know how to fix it.