"Buying Votes is Voluntary and Not a Problem"
that's why people are buying 100$ worth votes here, but what about those who have less power like me

@krnel
Its very hard for new steemians to get upvotes for their blog.. Very few upvotes the post... 
Buying  votes from bot sometime b like a shit post blowing on trending page and a valuable post with zero upvotes. Many joins each days.. Many quit daily as they gets no attention... 
Steemit was made for getting rewards for quality content.. Need to think over it

Your Money, your rules . That’s how I see it . I never saw an official rule book to this platform

vote buying is really ruining it 
there is so much talk about content !
if they really trust the content why they need it

The problem is there can be numerous factor influencing the rise or fall of the platform. I think what Steemit needs is a monthly poll where people vote to come to an agreement about what are the malpractices and what are good behavior. And each account votes one. or some other neat mechanism to regulate the community's conscience.

By itself, buying votes is not a problem. Misunderstanding and rejection this by society arises when votes are bought to support copy-paste, plagiarism and other content, which does not have a chance to get even a dollar from real users.
It is also sad that the majority of bid bots can vote even after Cheetah or Steemcleaners. This calls into question our entire system of values and rewards.

>With vote buying, high rewards on a post then, are not a measure of the appreciation or value of the content of a post that earn those rewards, but instead reflect an ability to buy votes rather than earn them through the content itself.

That's not true. It can be an evaluation of the content, an appreciation of the content, and I argue that it is after all. If someone feels that their content is worth so much of their SBD or STEEM then why wouldn't it be fair evaluation and appreciation of the content?


As for the experiment, why not. I recommend @honestbot even though I've never used a bot, I use all my SBD/STEEM to power back up.

You're right, I've personally been against the vote buying the whole time I've been here (I consider it more of a whale's cash cow, ripe for abuse since, IMO,  is  basically "anti-proof-of-brain") but have lately been coming around to whole the idea mainly due to the fact they are definitely now here to stay (witness encouraged & approved )and some bot owners are even allocating some portion of their income/rewards for further steem/development causes, which is great.
I agree, only time and the free market will tell how well or not this all plays out for steem.

I wrote a post on paper. Its along these same lines. I don't know if I want to post it now lol. Basically I talked about how the last human curators are holding out, but eventually the vote bots will win. I could make much more money delegating my voting power. As soon as Luke Stokes and team Steem, ura soul and flipstar, gr1 and mangos. Surpassing Google and pharesim start delegating to bots, this platform is in for some rough roads. Not saying they will, but they are losing money for not. While the vote bots and self upvoters take money, the human curators upvoting good content are losing.

Yeap, Steemit is a free market, therefore the community decides what behaviors to promote and what behaviors to restrain. Users who invested the most in the platform and have the biggest stake in the game (most steem / steep power) have interest in the platform performing good for the community, so their stake is worth something, therefore if the community feels that buying votes have negative impact on the platform, these high stake individuals will probably act against it and they have tools to do so (eg flag, affect user's reputation). At the other hand, if users find buying votes as a genuine part of the game and positive then people buying / selling votes have nothing to worry about. It's all about perception and platform advancement.

I whould like to ask one questiOn, can we get more SP by using postpromoter to get upvotes ?

Thanks @krnel to giving my multitasking brain some food for thought.
+ I've been thinking of doing a post along the lines of:
  + ***I LOVE & BELIEVE IN FREE MARKET***
    + Given the opportunity (which is rare nowadays) the free market helps the most amount of people...
+ I have been looking at Steemit (the current hard fork) as the law.
  + You cannot break this law.
    + That is impossible, because it is hard-wired right into the program...
+ Here in the United States, we have the Constitution which is the law of the land.
  + If in the course of human events, the Constitution is found lacking, it can be amended to correct problems.
    + I think we must trust the whales to correctly influence the progress of "amending" the Steemit program, to correct problems.
+ I've been on the fence regarding vote bots.
  + I've experimented a bit with them and have seen an increase in cash flow, but have not figured out how to see if it was actually a profitable adventure.
    + IMHO, if the voting bots are "legal" why does anyone have any "right" to say people shouldn't use them? Even if it's for copy-paste crap...?
    + Please note. That is my IMHO today. I reserve the right to a completely different IMHO tomorrow. For I am constantly trying to learn about this platform...

Hopefully posts such as yours keeps the discussion going,
+ resulting in positive change
  + so Steemit gets better and better
    + on its march to becoming the #1 Social Media Platform!!!

woo .. veldig kul med steem kan shoppe i markedet så vil du gå dit @krnel

I appreciate and understand the sentiment, but I don't think anything like this can be reasonably coordinated and achieved. For instance, I wouldn't want to participate in an experiment where I have to spend my SBD or Steem for a type of service I do not approve of.

Additionally, we also need a control, so we need to get people to stop using the vote buying for a period of time to see what the effect will be. But that will never happen as there will always be people who would use the time to buy cheaper upvotes.

But even in a perfect world where everybody in the platform would participate in an experiment, you most probably still wouldn't be able to show clear causal link as there are too many other variables. The price of Steem and SBD depend on a lot of additional factors, not just on the way people are behaving on the platform. Any change you see in the price of the token might actually be a direct result of implementing a platform wide experiment or the people's expectations of the outcome, not the actual thing being tested and you don't have any way to prove if it's one and not the other.

I'm not a fan of vote buying and I have no doubt that it one of the big contributors to people giving up on the platform. Seeing low quality content rewarded with very high earnings is indeed disheartening.

You made it very clear when you shared that content crusader post with me. You have my vote for witness. I think the masses are unaware and the whales don't care. Unfortunately, I see this playing out slowly. There will still be some good curation and rewarding of quality content, but clearly the powers that be here don't give a fuck about the long term success of the platform. I really wish someone would prove me wrong.

**Congratulations!** Your post has been selected as a daily Steemit truffle! It is listed on **rank 4** of all contributions awarded today. You can find the [TOP DAILY TRUFFLE PICKS HERE.](https://steemit.com/@trufflepig/daily-truffle-picks-2018-02-28) 
    
I upvoted your contribution because to my mind your post is at least **49 SBD** worth and should receive **111 votes**. It's now up to the lovely Steemit community to make this come true.

I am `TrufflePig`, an Artificial Intelligence Bot that helps minnows and content curators using Machine Learning. If you are curious how I select content, [you can find an explanation here!](https://steemit.com/steemit/@smcaterpillar/trufflepig-introducing-the-artificial-intelligence-for-content-curation-and-minnow-support)
    
Have a nice day and sincerely yours,
![trufflepig](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SmokinCaterpillar/TrufflePig/master/img/trufflepig17_small.png)
*`TrufflePig`*
    

So you are proposing a 'starve the beast' approach, but in reverse.  Feed the beast until it either takes us to STEEMtopia or it implodes.

This is a very difficult subject, and I'm happy to see such thoughtful discussion among people who clearly care about the future of this incredible platform (something of a holy grail for someone like me who values economies of kindness, generosity, and paying content creators for their content... mixed with crypto!).

As a newbie, I think I have a slightly different perspective from most of what I'm reading here. I'm going to be really honest with you and I hope you value that. What I see is that you are someone with a long history on here, a lot of power, and connections to many others like you on here. So when you look at what is good for the platform, anything you come up with includes it being good for you.

Consider for a moment the perspective of a little sub-minnow like myself though.  We want to see the platform flourish, but what if the changes that help shore it up exclude our having any place within it?  Should we be for that purely on principle?

Bots are the advertising we pay for that let’s anyone see our work while we have virtually no followings and low SP. Without them, we newbies have a very hard time getting any notice on here. Getting rid of the bots only solves the problem of bad quality content being high on the trending page. It would lead to more content from people with large followings being shown on trending, which doesn’t necessarily mean the highest quality content available on the platform. It would necessarily leave out newbies, no matter how good their content is.

Even if we forget about the experience of newbies, such a solution could only be temporary, because the flourishing of newbies is what is required to grow the platform and give it stable growth. We also prop up the price of STEEM, because we're the ones who actually need to buy it before we are likely to be able to earn enough to do much on here. 

So I think the conversation really needs to shift to what is best for newbies, and then consider that to be what is best for the platform.

As a newbie, I can tell you that I'm not making money off paying bots for upvotes. I pay more than I get back after curation. What I'm doing is not buying money, but buying advertising. 

I'm confident that my content is excellent, and when people see it they seem to agree. But I know that I can't get them to see it if I don't show them at least a couple dollars already on it when they look at it in the "new" or category list. They click through to look and find out it is good when they see the money there. I have to be the one to first invest in my article to get those $2 showing early on so that the blip of time my article is being shown to people even in a list, it catches their attention.

So without the bots, then someone needs to come up with some way of truly promoting the quality works of newbies. And that would be good, because even now, this is really unfair. I'm lucky I had $100 sitting in bitcoin that I could trade for some SBD. Even though I've lost about 25% in  value since making that trade, it has served me for one reason only, it allows me to pay bots to get my work seen. I would love to see a system where people who can't even afford that $100 initial investment could still succeed on here.

I think a big part of the solution is changing the algorithm for the Trending page. 

So long as the platform promotes making more money on a post as its measure of “value,” that is what people will prioritize when choosing articles to read on the platform!

Great article as always Krnel.

Facebook sells exposure. You pay Facebook for your post to be visible and thus market your brand.

Twitter sells you promoted posts.

It happens on other platforms as well. I don't agree with it.  But on other platforms the centralized business collects the profits.  On steemit individuals have that opportunity.  I don't agree, but it is what it is until the Witnesses decide otherwise. I think.  i don't know.