After reading this (and comments below) I think yeah, Self-voting gives you better money... But I think it's also good to vote for others, not only good but is the best because you get more longterm benefits from them.

But I agree, if you haven't missed anything. according to these stats: self-upvoting gives you better rewards.

Wait!! did you calculate only the money you get from curation? but also the money the post you curate make too.  Are the collective "profits" of you and the poster bigger than your "profits" if you self-upvote?

nice information, I follow you

I did [a little experiment](https://steemit.com/curation/@anonimnotoriu/i-ve-decided-to-stop-upvoting-myself-because-it-s-not-worth-it-2) regarding this from a minnow pov if anyone is interested to read.

Good article! I upvoted and followed you! Please follow me back so we can become friend :D

Thanks for noting this issue @codebreaker!  You can read as many white papers as you want but it doesn't always make sense until you can see a practical example of how it all plays out...  I find posts like this are helpful to a minnow like myself in getting some insight into how the mechanics/tech of the platform operate ...  However, no idea why the gap either!  Some techy person will no doubt have an explanation...

It appears that even if all you get is 0.01 per vote that you need to self vote plus curate. In my minnow stage every penny adds up. Thanks for sharing this break down.

I see nothing wrong in keeping it half and half at this point in time. My power is pretty low. If I spend half my power increasing my own, it will reward the other posts I upvote more. Win-win in my eyes.

For me I have to self vote myself. My vote 100% not even $0.1 . It is frustating after all the hardwork I put in a post... It is for this time being I guess.

Upvoted and RESTEEMED :)

i have seen a user who has 7 user names posting everyday and upvoting himself -- the quality is very low and it is supported by curation trails by other whales to make even more money - the system is being devalued by the greed of the whales who are not searching for good content but instead auto curating on trails following other whales

Interesting find... I guess those users are ok and happy with the contribution they are making to the community...

But yeah, seems like after HF19 self-voting is more profitable than curating, i think steemit should find a fix for this somehow... 

Maybe removing the self-upvote, allowing it only for posts and not for comments...

Hi @codebreaker, I was also wondering why there is such a huge gap in incentives between self upvoting and proper curation. I took a sabbatical from Steemit for about 8 months, and now see that the curation rewards were halved. I think that one of the reasons why content creation is now weighted higher is because Steemit as a platform needs to build its online presence quicker, and one way to achieve that is to have more good content creators publishing primarily on Steemit and sharing it everywhere else online. I do agree with this strategy, even though it does create some temporary incentive issues. I am now following you.

Thanks for sharing such a good post , yes i agree need to understand purly the financial benifit point of view , why those guys not using self voting , i think u missing one thing as u share those two accounts m b there are vote boosters , vote boosters getting Steem or SBD from users n giving back voting power or upvotes , so they getting from both sides from users also & from curation rewards also

Crazy to think how much SP those guys are accumulating per week.. Can't wait until I can do that :P 

Self-voting makes you literally 4 times more.. But it's also seen as being selfish. I think a 50/50 is good if you want some decent returns

We need to change balance of author and curation rewards from 75/25 to 50/50. I think it will solve the problem, won't it?

Well maybe they do make less, but they do get a lot of good will, @liberosist is new to me but @pharesim has upvoted a good number of my posts, of course at a low percentage, so I figure he does distribute his votes to a lot of people which I think is great.
By the way I do upvote my posts, my voting power is low so I get about 10 cents and I post about 2 or 3 times a day, so I don't think I do much harm, and also with people up voting so little nowadays I have to upvote my post so it can get at least some more viewers, because at 0 votes it's lost in seconds. And I do up vote a lot of posts also, not much money but I guess every little thing helps.

I think this is a very good article and well thought out. This is only my third day on Steemit, so I'm still learning the ropes, but one thing I've shied away from so far is self-voting. However, if curation along with posting original content is not sufficient to show a monetary reward, I will definitely start self-voting. It remains to be seen for me which is the better way. I'll continue to upvote others and leave comments and follow people, of course, just as I have done for your post. :)

Man,, I wanted to translate your article to chinese language in order to spread it to chinese community.
Please allow me to do so,upvote me if you like my action ,thank you!
https://steemit.com/cn/@incrediblesnow/curation

You could call it "throwing away money" or you could call it "contributing to the steemit ecosystem" (a rising tide lifts all boats)...plus it SHOULD cost you something to give to others...if it didn't, then there'd be an endless supply of cash which would make it worthless. There's no way around simple supply and demand

I vote self vote until they hardfork it

Nice post :)

Well first, I love that GIF lol.

Very interesting article as I'm still very new to steemit and I didn't even know you could "self-vote".

May I know how you arrived at the screenshots you displayed in the examples?

Great article, please keep sharing!

Curating other posts is always good idea you have chances of getting votes from other people. It also has long term benefits. If you curate minnow posts then he will grow, recognize good content and curate. I am following the above.

What about if you self-upvote only to give it all (the gains) back to as many minnows as possible? Just a dumb question.

Thanks for pointing this out. I never really thought of it this way. Now my thinking cap is on. Great post!

Self vote is more profitable. Curation  profitable only when after you more and more voters vote that post.

This post received a 3.1% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @codebreaker!  For more information, [click here](https://steemit.com/steemit/@randowhale/introducing-randowhale-will-you-get-the-100-vote-give-it-a-shot)!

The market value of Steem is linked to the quality of content on the block chain, and 1/2 of author and curation rewards are locked away in steem power for up to 13 weeks.

What will that $980 or $210 per day - along with the sizeable investment that lets those voters earn those returns - be worth in 13 weeks if everyone here is only voting for their own content without concern for quality?  OTOH, what will the $120 per day from curating be worth in a year or 5 or 10 years if people are voting for the best quality content they can find on the block chain in order to attract users and investors?

$980 per day becomes much less attractive when you realize that you can only liquidate $490 of it immediately, and you're getting it by pursuing a strategy that devalues your large investment in steempower.

They are not throwing money away. They aren't selfish and thats a good thing. You shouldn't be here for the money but for the fun and knowledge.

This is a very comprehensive article, we are still in the beta phase, who knows what add on's and features may be added to the block chain in the near future!

I am still learning, and kind of just assumed that voting on yourself if tacky.  Are you talking about upvoting a post?  Nice to meet you.

My dear cut baby, you have to kept the money for your future or let me catch the money. As a new steemian I need lots of Steem Power.  Thanks @codebreaker