There is a natural order to the steemit ranking system which measures ones accomplishments on the platform and the value they bring to the community and it is being destroyed. This order is recognized as a profile score and labeled with fish names such as plankton, redfish, minnow, dolphin, whale. As you put more effort and good content into the steemit platform you become more part of the steemit community, in return you are rewarded by more upvotes from your peers and thus more profile points, your profile score then increases. Up until now the only way to increase this score was to put in effort on the steemit platform. Write great articles, make a lot of comments and replies, collect upvotes from your peers and slowly work your way up the ladder. That has all changed now with high dollar bid bots.
I took a few months off of steemit recently for some personal reasons and when I got back on last week it seemed as though many of the newbs I had helped on the platform when they first joined were way ahead of me in profile score. At first I was happy for them and proud that they had done so well for themselves, but when I started reading their articles something seemed very wrong. There was no way they should have had $50+ votes on these articles, I had wondered what had changed? Turns out the bidbots had really been ramping up, buying all the delegations they could get their hands on. Now brand new steemians are flying through to 60+ profile scores without even having an audience. It's destroying the natural ranking in the ecosystem of the steemit pond.
I joined steemit in Aug. 17'. At the time there were only a few bid bots to help upvote your posts, it was a nice little helper to get a dollar or two boost so people would take the time to look at your post which had been getting passed up because there was no money on it. It was just a little helper, nothing special. To be honest in the beginning a lot of these bots cheated you out of money before safe guards got put into place by @yabapmatt, so they weren't used as often as they are now. They also weren't giving out HUGE upvotes like they are now. (I actually remember using a site created by @penguinpablo at first to see how much return I was suppose to get on a vote from a bid bot, but @yabapmatt revolutionized it and made it what it is today with the steemit bot tracker).
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Anyhow, back to my point. I don't mind people trying to get their content more views by getting some extra upvotes on their posts, that makes sense. However, I am seeing people who have $100+ posts that have zero real comments and 20 upvotes, 15 or more of them being bidbots. I get it, they are paying for advertisement but to be honest the articles are mostly SHIT! It seems as though they spend more time and energy getting bidbot votes than they do on their article. But once again to each is their own.
The real problem that I have is that these people who have been on the platform for less than a month have passed me up in profile score!?! I have worked hard for 9 months for some asshole to pass me up in under a month with no good content at all!?! Plus now when I see an article with $100+ dollars and a 60+ rep score it means nothing to me. I don't think it's anything special that is for sure, and I find that unfair for all the steemians who worked so hard to get those high dollar posts and those impressive reputation scores.
Steemit is set up a certain way so you can see who has put a lot of work into the platform. That is being messed with now by these HUGE upvotes these bid bots give out. I have seen people go from a 25 to 60+ score in less than one month on the platform with literally no good material, not one article that I would even bother to give a partial upvote to. They have like 15 Steem Power for voting, not that they bother to vote on other peoples posts. And zero dollars in SBD because it all constantly goes directly to the bid bot. They don't even bother commenting or replying, they just see steemit as a game to play for the biggest upvote regardless of material!
I for one see this as a huge problem. I find it discouraging to people who actually believe in the platform. I think it will end up chasing away so many more people than it will bring in. It really bothers me and I am a huge believer in steemit. The problem here is that steemit needs a community to work properly, and this community is being destroyed by people who think the bidbots are the answer to getting ahead on steemit.
Sure, I could also play the game and do this too but it doesn't seem right to me. I believe in steemit and the natural order that was set up here so I don't care to mess with that. So I will just keep on keepin on with what I am doing.
Oh yeah, another huge problem with bid bots is they buy up all the delegations which leaves people who actually curate good articles with smaller upvotes to pass out to the community of people who really try to put out good material on this platform, thus hurting the good content community even more. I can't compete with bid bots in buying delegations because those things are created to make money for its owner, I loose money when I buy delegations and share it with the community (are you seeing the issue here). I have to use my own hard earned money to buy delegations to hand out bigger upvotes to people who actually deserved it for good content. Unfortunately I can't afford to do that anymore because bid bots are driving up all the delegation costs for normal users, hence stealing bigger upvotes from the people who should be getting them for their hard work and good content which helps the steemit platform grow.
I am not saying that bid bots are bad, I actually like the idea behind them to be honest. Trust me, I definitely understand how hard it is for a new minnow to get your post viewed, I still struggle with it sometimes and I have been on the platform for nearly a year now. I just feel like they have gotten out of control once again and something needs to be done to bring the upvotes back down to a reasonable limit so it doesn't mess with the natural order of things on steemit, things like the ranking system.
Maybe I'm the only one who sees this as problem? Maybe I care to much about my steemit ranking and the steemit community as a whole? Maybe I'm crazy? In any case I feel like if this continues the way it is going that it will be really bad for the steemit platform as a whole. What do you think?
