Hi again @krnel

The problem I see if generally users were to boycott the bots would be that they still existed, as a then profitable tool for the bot owners.

It would act pretty much as a pay-for-vote self service machine where the delegator maximizes their stake, and the bot owner receives huge 'self' votes.

And further to this, who will police this action?  As for the most part, the ones that would police in the past are the delegators to these bots.  It seems we are in a tough place right now.

There is a lot of speculation and abuse of questionable means, it seems that everything is being automated and I do not know if it has a solution, perhaps it's allied with the ideology of the platform, thanks again.

What is the alternative to bidbots? I dont like that system of buying votes either... But now that it exists, I believe is not enough to, like, tell people the problems it causes... Can you really emerge on steemit without using bidbots? How? Answering that question effectively for minnows, could contribute very much. But this is just what I believe... Anyway I enjoy the debates on improving steemit, so thank you for this post!

I never bought a single vote and I never will

You're my witness from now on, Sir.

Sorry, noob question, what is a bid bot?

Is it like a bot that upvotes all you do?

I don't even likethe idea of upvoting my own posts.

But sir some of us dont use bidbots and we read your content as well

I dislike bid bots.
Not just because of how it messes up the rewards pool, but how it messes up the trending.
The trending is no longer useful.  It is almost just a war of bots.

Then, was it ever useful, accept to know when and what whales voted on?

I avoid bitbot voting, mostly by only voting on posts that have low payouts.  Usually after a good post gets above $20, i am less inclined to upvote it.

Bid bots are just a natural progression even when money isnt involved. People pay upvote bots on reddit just to push their own ideas or agendas. I think its really mostly up to the user to be diligent in looking at the type of gamed content, but if they enjoy it, I dont see too much of a problem. You see the same thing in Twitch with people trying to promote their channels. 

While sometimes they do use view bots to push them up to the top, they might offer giveaways instead to bring people in. I think many people just want a natural audience growth, which bots can serve that purpose. Eventually if people dont like their content or they dont see it worth it, they will stop using them.

I have voted you as a witness, based on this stance.  Integrity.  Also, I use steemian.info/witnesses to make my choices for witnesses.  What single category of those listed on that site would you consider the most important when voting for witnesses?  Thanks for your insights.

Steemit seems to be immune to adds from outside but internally there is no way to stop it,  except the reactions of well-intentioned Steemians.
Citizens' journalism is being replaced by a nickel machine system to look like a casino.
I'm tired of receiving messages and adds to buy money with Steem.
I would like to receive adds telling me to write quality content.
Maybe there is an idea to start here.:)

Great post and I completely agree. Automation of this process is the bane of its existence. We should be on this platform to read peoples content, comment on their posts and expand our knowledge, expertise and grow as individuals. This automation and bot junk is just the deterioration of society and this community before it can get a chance to succeed further. The bid bots are ruining what people have worked hard for. I may really enjoy a particular authors content but when using bid bots it doesn't let me tell them that this one post they created wasn't up to the standards I have or if I disagree with their post the bid bot votes anyway. 
I refuse to use these bots even though I am at the bottom of the barrel as far as strength on here, I will not succumb to the ease of automation.

You just need to consider one thing! Bidbot services are actually are an after-effect, a symptom if you will, of lack of support!!! If everybody was getting support they deserved for quality content - although we can hardly agree on what it is - then bidbot owners would be cut out overnight!

If people get pennies for a well-written and well-researched article, then what are you expecting them to do? At the end of the day nobody wants to waste their time for something than can't be justified financially! 

Them MAIN issue is lack of SP trickling down from those, who have it! Solve this problem and everything's gonna become a wonderland... but we know very well it cannot happen yet for the OBVIOUS REASONS!

I fully agree to this. But it seems very little number of Steemonians like us are against bid bots. And we're having a fight against them which we will never win.
I mean why didn't the witnesses not yet so something? 

And how about Steemit Inc? Are SMT'S more important then fixing major issues?

I used to use a bot thinking it would help get eyeballs on my posts and help get the message out, but a while ago I read one of your posts on the bid bot issue and then did some digging on my own into the larger dialogue and realized it just doesn't make sense to use bots if you want the platform to survive and thrive for normal people. 

The next thing that helped me change my mind was learning a bit about how the reward pool works, which I did by stumbling across the raging debate between a crypto chart expert and a one-time democratic candidate. Before that I wasn't clear on the reward pool (the exact details are still a bit beyond me) and didn't realize the better somebody else is doing compared to you determines how the reward pool is divvied up. That made it very clear using bots actually hurts other people trying to compete in the free market of ideas. Not good.

And for good measure, there's a guy name yallipapi or something like that, who is actually a very entertaining writer, but he explained exactly how he manipulates the system by dropping $150 on bid bots to get big payouts, and makes it very clear anyone can do the same thing with zero-effort posts. 

I just thought wtf, I put hours into stuff trying to get an important message out there, or to write some really nice thoughtful fiction and people can use bots to pump 20 second posts? That's not fair to me or anyone else actually investing time and trying to make a difference, so if I continued doing that, having understood that, I wouldn't be any better. So I stopped. The bidbots must die, the only way to do that is to starve them apparently.

I'm glad someone with high rep like u doesn't use bots like many high rep people. 

I thought all high rep people only think of themselves and using bot for their own benefit, they don't care about others. 

It seems there are 1% high rep people who disagree with this bot style.

I agree with your points here. 

> I have been against bidbots since they first appeared in 2017

I am now kind of against them, but I must admit that last year when I just got into Steemit I did use randowhale and booster a bit. But randowhale was way more innocent than what bots are nowadays where you can boost your posts to several hundred dollars. And not only that, with BidBots you can make other bidders to lose money if you bid too high, thats just nuts. (please correct me if I am wring, maybe things changed, but it used to be like that a couple months ago)

I totally understand your frustration about seeing users growing their Rep super fast by boosting shitposts like there is no tomorrow < EVEN Witnesses. 

I have talked with a Witness that likes to boost a lot of his posts in PM and the answer I always get is "It is for exposure/visibility reasons"

I just don´t see the need to give exposure/visibility to a post about a Fortnite session though... I honestly see that as buying Rep while making a quick buck (not really good money, but it all adds up)

I didn't bother with witness voting until this post
Tried setting you as a proxy as well but it wont allow me to do that for some reason

I think this is an honorable yet ineffective approach.   We have to take a look at why vote bots exist in the first place.

They exist because the primitive Steemit trending tab is easily exploited by them.   Simply pay for votes and you get more exposure on the site.  

I've done a lot of experimenting with buying votes.  I bought votes for exposure and I bought votes to manipulate the way curation is distributed.  Maybe you noticed that I would pump a post after you upvoted it.  I was trying to give my organic followers an artificial curation bonus. 

Now that @smartsteem is getting a bit greedier there is no reason for me to continue to buy votes.  The margins are razor thin.  It's also nice when I don't have to look at a big payout and wonder how much (if any) of that is even profit.  

When it really comes down to it the only way to truly stop vote buying is to fix the way users experience content on Steemit.  We need better filters and custom trending tabs. 

I've also dabbled with the idea of creating a decentralized network of vote buying/selling to undercut everyone else.  Anyone would be able to sell their vote for any value.  It would be a free market of supply/demand.  This would likely create a race to the bottom where vote bots would no longer be making a profit because everyone could choose to be their own vote bot. 

I'd really like to punish all the devs who put all those hours into exploiting the system... but I'm sure you can see how that would be hypocritical unless I could get it programmed relatively quickly.  

Advanced custom trending tabs are the real way to kill bit-bots.  I need to learn JavaScript, Node.js, and Chrome Extensions before I can make any headway here though.

I’m new on steemit, here for a couple of months now. And still discovering, i really like the platform, and the content, but ... to become a leading platform, they really need to change some things. One of the things that it needs is a ban on the bots. I’m not sure how the bots work, but it is obvious that these bots just help the few, and the content is not all great. Also the discovery section and algoriddm needs an upgrade imho.  

Thanks for the article it is my understanding that Christian Trail and classical radio does not work like a bot.  As for Family Protection I was told it's a donation basis.  I'm only telling you what I know but those are the ones I've used all good causes and from my understanding not paid boats again thanks. @krnel