Not only at Steem.

They are at Bitshares too, trading faster than you could ever do.

No bid bots were used for this post.

The so called trending (landing) page on Steem was one I stayed away from as much as possible. Just like I did with those rubbish reSteem services. Basicly the first is an advertising service and the second a SPAM one. The accounts offering these services profit the most from it. That is why it has been created in the first place.

From my point of view reSteem services are very closely related to Scams. And they can become extremely annoying, they're like unwanted flyers that get dumped in one's mailbox. To me they are an absolute waste of Steem/ SBD {Steem Backed Dollar}. The revenue on bidbot services at least is more worth using it. As I did try myself a while back, it created some bonus SP {Steem Power}.

It is just advertising.

If one wanted to get ones post noticed on Trending this would take between a 100 to 200 SBD investment. Marketing on a Social Media platform, build on a blockchain like Steem, does come at a certain price. There is no Marketing firm that owns Steem, as it is a Community Stake Holder construction. All members registered on the blockchain own a share, as shown in their account.

As it is Free and Open (Sourced) it can be used for a lot of different purposes. Be it commercial, gaining capital by offering services to using it as a platform for freedom of expression and anything in between. There is absolutely no guarantee one's time and efforts do get valued and rewarded. A heavily bidbot advertised post on trending can attract members that hope to get a part of the payout, for instance. Subjective ideas about whether it has to have a certain level of quality are actually unimportant.

Support what you prefer.

Fighting against the so called bidbot services seem like a waste of time and energy to me. Even though they do drain the reward pool for quite a bit. These services own a lot of stake in the Steem system already and therefore get big returns in payouts from the upvoted posts. And of course they get a lot of SBD/ Steem payed for giving part of their voting power as an upvote service. That is something I think is good for Steem members to be aware of. Basicly they help get the bidbot services become legend level accounts. For me that insight was a reason to stop using them.

Now, I can imagine reasons to use them to get noticed and get at least a return gain in SP, above the payed SBD/ Steem. It is all possible on Steem. And even advertising part is understandable though a reason for me to stay away from the trending page most of the time. But to change this around is by offering an alternative, for instance, like the no bitbod innitiative. All that is needed next is some huge support from Legend level members and it could become a game changer.

Withdraw Witness votes

Some of the bidbot services also run a witness node. Now part of showing that you disaprove some of these services is by removing a vote for their witness node. And give a vote to those who run for witness that support no bidbots, for instance. Witness voting and or unvoting can be a way to send out a strong signal.

This is offering an alternative that might be more effective than trying to fight them. Also, I believe in giving people the freedom to choose based on all the information transparantly availble to them. And that I stopped self-upvoting and used bidbots briefly does not mean others have to do the same. After all, a big part of the drive to use Steem is an economical one. To gain enough Steem Power {SP} to make a difference at all is already tough enough.

Counter by offering alternatives.

It is easy to be critical, but it is quite a challenge to offer different solutions or alternatives that work. And I can state that it is quite hard to build up some Steem Power these days from scratch. Bidbot services also can attract advertisers, who just want to market their goods and or services for example. They need to invest in Steem and or Steem Backed Dollar {SBD} for that. Which is actually a good thing for all members that have some Steem at Stake.

And some bidbot services use delegated Steem, paying members part of the payout. So, part of the reward pool also flows back to those who delegated their SP. Still helping to build dominant accounts in thr proces and that might backfire at some point in time. Yet, if one does dislike this I think it is a waste to complain and or rage hard about it on the trending page. Throwing away Steem and or SBD that could be put to good use. By supporting alternative solutions for instance instead. And that could even proven to be profitable too.

Steem on Steemian!

PS Due to the length of this post I will write about Bitshares trading bots in another one...

Not all bots are bad.

Image CC0 licensed courtesy of Comfreak at Pixabay.