Congratulations are in order! That realization is far-reaching, indeed; there's so much here... 

I've come to realize that all evil is deception - the [forgery of truth](https://steemit.com/philosophy/@bbblackwell/the-forgery-of-truth-going-all-the-way). I'm not trying to evoke images of fire and brimstone here; I'm citing "evil" as "wrong" (i.e. incorrect), and therefore creating less desirable outcomes, as any denial of truth does. Voting bots are a lie; a *manipulation* of the system, rather than a *use* of it.

And then we have the matter of monetary gain. The big carrot dangling at the end of nearly every stick. They say life is a journey, not a destination. The joy is in the *doing*, and the reward is just a cherry on top. Using Steemit **to** make money is not the same thing as using Steemit **and** making money. The goals are vastly different. 

Enjoying the platform, seeking to uplift and be uplifted, participating in (and contributing to) the community... these are the things that will yield the most satisfaction. We achieve personal growth in our attempt to create quality content for its own sake, rather than by trying to generate a payout.

We begin to scour our experiences for insights that we can share. This encourages us to adopt the perspective of [seeking personal value](https://steemit.com/life/@bbblackwell/seeking-personal-value), which can have a profound effect on every area of our lives. We're challenged to evaluate our ideas with more clarity when we're sharing them with others; and our writing skills improve as we try to share those ideas in an understandable way.

You've made these realizations, and it's a real turning point. It's to your credit that you are honest enough to acknowledge and embrace truth when it makes its appearance - it's the single most important quality in changing the world for the better. Way t' be!

I am with you.  It was nice to see those bigger numbers under your post and now it is kind of a downer to go back to the small payouts.  I don't regret it though.  My wife is probably going to make fun of me because I put so much work into something that only makes $1.  It is still more organic though and I doubt the ROI on the votes I was buying was really that big.

I did a bit bot experiment a few weels back where i spent  a week without bots and then a weel using bots. I made more profit without the bots! And i felt alot better about my posts to - i can understand the false sense of accomplishment.

When i stopped using bots i have gotten more notice from manual curators -  had a couple of @curie upvotes - it seems they hunt for 'undervalued' content and if you have paid for a vote then its not undervalued anymore....

I use the odd bot here and there mainly for competitions i run just to get a bit more visibility. 

Keep up the good work

In de categorie beter laat dan nooit of spuit elf heeft modder, en reactie van mijn kant.

Nu de bid bots minder gebruikt worden kan je er financieel winst op maken. Tot wel 60% of zelfs 80%. Zou je nu niet opnieuw overwegen om ze te gebruiken?

Mag ik uit nieuwsgierigheid vragen of je wel eens fiat geld hebt geïnvesteerd of laten uitbetalen?
Je bent een gebruiker van het eerste uur. En ik vind je zeer interessant om te volgen. Obv mijn persoonlijke voorkeur zou ik verwachten dat je account populairder zou zijn.

This is a great initiative you have! By showing the plankton that you can take it slow and still succeed it'll raise morale around here

True. If one decided to take the shortcut by just using the bots, you may eventually loose sight of the need to creative quality content and add value by means of your writeups. Bots may be profitable to some, but having used it sometimes, I loose much than i gain. Maybe i do not know much. So am taking my time to learn about the true nature of bots and how profitabl- if at all- they are.

@daan when I did sign up to steemit I swore never to use bots. Just like you wrote they do give a false feeling of appreciation. I decided to take the engagement and interacion road. Because you need to try everything once, I did play with the bots and did see the financial value of some!
I do still use a particular bot once or twice a week but only for 0.5 SBD.
The combination of genuine content creation and bot usage could be a real gold mine but my wallet does not allow this tactic.
I do have lots of steembasicincome shares, which are a big part of my income! Combined with the upvotes of the busy bots (free of charge).
When I did start had a streak of 15 unpaid posts and my income did come from commenting.
Now my posts have a value of around $1. Not much but genuine!
I do have friends who  use bots a lot with a lot I do mean for $400 to $500. It is their choice but they won’t loose my respect!
As long as the quality is fine, I don’t mind!
Cheers,
Peter

You are right! It feels better to know that every dollar earned is earned without having to pay for it.  Imagine a point where you earn the same as you did with bots, without using any bots... Hopefully it all works out for those of us who aren't botting.

Congratulation! By the way I love your steem engine.

Better late than never in finding this out, right?

I have used the bidbots a couple of times and I was not always so happy with the results especially with the steem price fluctuating a lot. Sometimes you would see you expensive vote fade overnight and that just sucks.

But the thing is...you write quality articles, so I guess you should be fine in the end, and I am somewhere glad you stopped using them. Good going!

Congratulation on seeing the light and errors of your ways. Welcome to the #nobitbots club ;) I've written about the greater fulfillment from a sense of [accomplishment](https://steemit.com/philosophy/@krnel/turning-boredom-into-enjoyment) by [earning](https://steemit.com/life/@krnel/working-to-earn-your-way-forward) your way ;) To [work](https://steemit.com/philosophy/@krnel/the-importance-of-work-for-our-identity-meaning-and-purpose-in-life) for what we get and derive greater meaning and value.

I think many of us have been through the phase os using vote bots. Like you I also loved seeing higher amounts on my posts till I learnt more so have not used them for quite a while already. You are so right @daan, it does give one a false sense of achievement, and to me it's like cheating the system!

Good for u bro.. i am actually doing the opposite right now and trying bots (fir the first time) as an experiment, i definitely get that false sense of accomplishment you talk about, it is addictive but then i wonder if i truly made any money at all??  Or if i lost out on a bigger vote because people  already think Ive made enough.. so many questions to be answered.. i still dont care for them tho..

Hallelujah! I love this. I've started using bots on a small scale earlier this year. I stopped mainly because of the false sense of success. I even wonder if it is a vote loser sometimes. Now I've stopped and I've  noticed that I'm getting more consistent genuine votes. Slow but steady. Therefore, I won't be using bots again.

I wonder what your thoughts are on resteem services.

There is no substitute for hard work and persistence.

I tried using bidbots in an experimental way for a while, and I thought I was doing well and making a bit of profit on them. But when I actually totalled up the amount I'd spent on them vs the amount my posts earned, I found that I'd made an overall loss! It was quite a surprise - and during that time I had published a couple of unbotted posts. One of those posts had attracted a Curie vote - so the earnings on my unbotted posts for that period were significantly higher than on the bidbotted ones!
I published [this post](https://steemit.com/bidbots/@natubat/why-i-won-t-be-using-bidbots-again) on it about a month ago.
I found it quite exciting using the bots, but I don't think I'll use them again. I think some people use them repeatedly to build up their Steem Power, but I personally think there are more interesting and creative ways to do that.

Great post i never used bots and i admit i not agree with them. It's better grow here with our own skills in my opinion.

This is really true. I think they can give you a false sense of accomplishment and I'm noticing my attachment to them. It's time to start a new! :) Thanks for inspiring me ...

Daan, your posts are always worthy to stand on their own with or without bots. I’m glad you did this experiment with bots as it helps others, like myself, who are still struggling to gain more voting power, etc., to see bots may not be the answer.

Tell you the truth, I've been struggling with this go or no go for bot thing every time I see others are getting ridiculous money on each post, the temptation is there, but not that strong for me to go for it. 

Thank you for sharing this, at least I know I am not alone in this journey.

Happy to read this a post like that. People are starting to change their mind about bidbots I think.

I also stopped to use Dtube because of the " False Sense of Accomplishment " (huge votes but 50% goes to curator / past 25% to Dtube). 

So... As you are going to focus on Communities, if you find the Belgian one, please tell :) And see you next time IRL for a Brussels's Meetup :)

I can relate to both ways. 
It was only  a couple of weeks ago that I was where you are now. 
But now I’m struggling...
You see, experiments have shown that the fastest way to grow your account is by using the bots wisely. I’m not talking about throwing hundreds at a crappy post. My content is not of that good quality that I believe it’s worth getting it to trending.

Since I started here on SteemIt, I have been all about helping others to climb the ladder. But my account is only small; the help I can give them is almost neglectable.

Earlier this week I read some posts and had some conversations that made me think: growing my account as fast as possible will allow me to help more people in a better way.

You’ve got to stay true to yourself and shouldn’t exploit the system, but I trust myself enough to not do that. I will never use the bidbots if I don’t think my article is good enough (still talking about throwing just a little SBD to them, not hundreds)

This place needs a middle class, urgently. There are a couple of exceptions, but for now it’s small minnows helping plankton and the other way around. We need more bigger accounts that are willing to support the little guys if we want SteemIt to survive.

I’m not saying I’ve made up my mind yet about which direction to go from here, but the facts are that organic growth takes time... too much time. 
I considered self-voting and bidbot use as things you shouldn’t do.
But if those things give me the opportunity to grow my account faster, so I can make a bigger difference in more people’s SteemIt experience... are they the wrong way to go??

Like I said, I’m still struggling with all this. It’s a fine line between using available resources to do the good thing and abuse.

You might be interested in one of the related posts and comments on it that made me think about all this. 
https://steemit.com/steemit/@beeyou/what-is-the-path-to-success-on-steemit-perspective-of-a-redfish

(You’ll find some results of the experiments there that will show you how organic growth is the slower way)

Well done for continuing your stance! I'm just the same as you, a reformed Steemian, no bots.. never again!

Good for you daan. I was surprised to find them when I joined a couple of months ago. I won't and have never used them and done OK. If the content is good I know people are out there doing good work in finding and rewarding it. They're just not required :)

I've been preaching against the so-called 'bots', but I have the advantage of having built my account before they came along. It was a long slog, but I feel it worked out well as I've made lots of good friends along the way. I hope it works out for you too

Good for you, I have never paid for a vote bot service and I never will, it just never made sense to me, and it wasn't like I came here to make money either. I don't even up vote my own posts, in 9 months I've done two by accident. 
I did join the @theschoolofminnows and it does utilize votes I have setting around when I am not on here and upvotes other school members, and then when I post something it comes by and upvotes some of my stuff. That is as close to a voting bot as I have come and I did it more to help others more than myself, it is kind of a waste just to let voting power sit idle when people could use your vote.

I'm on the fence about using bots. I've played around just to test how to use them for a few posts but I haven't been lately. I also feel using them all the time will lull me into a false feeling of success on Steemit. Glad I'm not the only one with these thoughts. Thanks for sharing!

I avoided using the bots pretty much for about 10 Months, and just recently have been using them a little, but I really felt kind of bad using them, and have just about decided to not use them anymore, and am weaning myself off them, I do not have a problem with others using them, but I think it is just not for me

After getting no or hardly any upvotes on most of my first good quality posts for months with over a 1000 words each I've decided to do smaller posts and to use bots

Wow!!!  I was thinking you will say that you stopped using bid bots because it was not profitable. 😎