One of them tried bidding 180 SBD for a vote, but that was over the limit. He is spending hundreds on votes to trend, but does that mean a profit? I've heard some say you don't actually make money that way. I can accept that people use the bots to get a little more 'exposure', but this is serious money. Of course those running the bots are quite happy to take the money and they are doing really well from it. There must be some sort of bidding war going on to get the big votes. I'm just not going to play that game. There are some people setting up accounts we can delegate to that will flag posts with excessive rewards. That may be a more effective way to do it and give a degree of anonymity. I really don't care about losing some curation rewards. I just want to see good content rewarded from a more diverse set of users. This is why I have delegated so much already. Much of that gains me nothing in return.
I note that several big Steemit players are voting on these. Are they just following the bots? I think they should be conscious of the content they support.
What these guys are do is simply more than excessive vote buying. I have no problem if people buy votes to promote or even get ROI for their posts but their crap content is so shit! No way I can be calm. Of course the bid bot has a client relationship and if they pay the bot votes but they should add them on a black list moving forward if e.g. @steemcleaners adds them to their black list.
For sure they make no profit from buying the votes - what concerns me most is they defend their work as quality or ART lol - OMG - i would laugh a bit if i would be not sad looking at their posts. This has to stop in my opinion - I can not do a lot about it apart from saying it.
I'll be willing to back off a bit on my standpoint about vote buying if it means we have a way of calling bullshit on bullshit content raking in excessive rewards.
I think we need the flagging accounts to be non-posting so they cannot be flagged and so nobody can be accused of benefiting from the delegation. @hendrix22 has a couple already. I'll support others that do this.
Wouldn't it be great if one could buy flags?!
No way that could end badly :) I'd expect someone to offer it if there is demand. Money talks
Money talks loudly... and wars never lack budget, so you are right, this could end badly ;)
I guess we'll need a flagging culture for everyone, as strong as the upvote culture. For now, steemit is just too positive for that, and everybody is scared of being critical.
(sorry, some unfinished thoughts)
This sounds like a possible soloution.
I would love to talk with you.