Death By Bidbot: The Fair Use Of Steem
Is Steemit fair or unfair? Is it fair that a post about puppies has over $300 whilst a well thought out article with clever poetry and intricate prose by @quillfire gets less than $1?
Of course the puppy shitposter would say yes, and @quillfire would say no. Some of you would agree with the shitposter whilst (hopefully) more of you would agree with Quill.
Does Fair Exist?
Perhaps that is the problem, the concept of fairness is completely and utterly subjective. Take taxation for instance, in my country (UK) a person pays 23% income tax, unless they earn more than a certain amount of money in a year. Then that same person might pay 40% or even 50%.
However can that really be viewed as fair? The person who earns say £25,000 per year and pays 23% would say yes, they have less money so they should pay less.
The person earning £250,000 per year might say no, that regardless of income the percentage paid should be the same.
Both sides could no doubt come up with some very valid arguments as to why they should pay less, whilst the other side pays more.
The Objectivity Of Fair
Clearly we can see many scenarios whereby what is fair to one person, is distinctly classed as unfair to another. However is there such a thing as objective fairness?
Perhaps we can say it is unfair for a person to kill an innocent child, or rape a woman, as we have deemed murder and rape as universally wrong.
However it could be argued that those things are still subjectively fair. In ancient Rome infanticide (killing children) was common practice. Roman contraception was not the best, at the same time they were partial to the odd orgy or two, this combination of sex and poor contraception led to a lot of unwanted babies. It was considered a fair practice to simply toss your newborn child onto a pile of rubbish and let them die.
In the Bronze Age, and indeed in some cultures today, it was seen as fair to rape a woman as long as you married her afterwards, or paid her father a sum of money for despoiling his daughter.
Slavery is also seen as ultimately unfair, yet in the Bible and the Koran there are guidelines on how to keep and beat your slaves in accordance with god's wishes.
There are not too many people on earth today who believe that slavery is fair. So perhaps fairness is completely subjective, it just depends on who you are and what era you live in, on whether you'll find something fair or not.
Steem Fair
So are bidbots fair?
I have thus far kept out of the bidbot debate. For those of you who don't know, or are reading this outside the bubble of Steemit. Bidbots are pieces of software that have accrued huge amounts of Steem Power (the currency of Steemit.com), who then lease their SP to Steemit users so they can boost their posts.
The upshot is that somebody making an entirely lame post about puppies or the wall in their back garden, can pay a bidbot some money and that bot will vote up their valueless article to the top of the trending page for all to see.
In some ways I think this is totally fair enough, the blockchain is about a truly free market whereby everyone has the same opportunities as each other to exploit the market as they see fit.
Even though I don't use them, up until now I haven't begrudged anyone else using them, because me not being involved with them was a personal choice, rather than being blocked from using them by some hidden legislative power. In other words:
Live and let live.
Now though, especially with the price of Steem tanking, I have come to the conclusion, that bidbots aren't fair.
They aren't being fair to all of the people who have put in hard work to create good content on Steemit over the last two and a half years.
People like myself who have resisted the temptation to shitpost, and have tried to create content that will enrich Steemit and make it as popular a social media platform as Reddit or Facebook.
Because let me tell you, when I think back on the thousands of hours I have put into creating posts, then I see some numpty post about his puppies. Or some lazy sod copy and paste a pdf they googled, it really sticks in the throat.
What To Do?
Unfortunately there is nothing that can be done, the blockchain code is open source, meaning that anyone can grab the Steem APIs and do what the hell they want.
Bidbots are here to stay, so the question on whether they're fair is pretty much a moot point. What we should really be asking ourselves is:
Are bidbots ruining the Steem blockchain?
In my mind, yes they are.
The days before the bidbots, when the Steem price went down, just as today, user activity also declined. However the difference then was that the reward pool, which stays the same regardless of the amount of users, was getting spread around the users who decided to stick around.
So in other words, when the price went down, users went down, individual rewards went steadily up.
Nowadays, we do not see this sweet little algorithm, because the bidbots are able to pool a large percentage of the rewards for their paying customers, leaving the rest of us to scrabble around in the dirt for scraps.
What's The Solution?
I'm not sure there is one, or if indeed we need one. Perhaps things only seem unfair to me because I am not benefiting from the bidbots.
Perhaps it is simply a case of, it is what it is, if the bidbots contribute to Steem going back to zero then so be it.
If potential new users come to the Trending Page and see a $300 dollar puppy article, right above a $200 dollar picture of somebody's cat and that makes them think Steemit is a scam, then that's just the way it is.
I don't know if there's a solution, for me it is sad though. I've put a lot of work into Steemit and the situation at the moment saddens me. It doesn't seem fair that I can no longer get on the Trending Page without paying for the privilege.
It doesn't seem fair that quality high-value posts, that could potentially benefit hundreds or thousands of people will never get more than a dollar and won't be seen by hardly anyone.
It doesn't seem fair that the trending page at the moment makes Steemit look like a scam.
It doesn't seem fair that bidbots are killing my beloved Steemit . . .
WHAT DO YOU THINK; ARE BIDBOTS FAIR? OR IS IT RIDICULOUS TO EVEN THINK IN TERMS OF FAIRNESS? HAVE YOU USED BIDBOTS BEFORE OR WOULD YOU CONSIDER USING THEM?
REMEMBER, THIS IS A JUDGEMENT FREE ZONE AND WHETHER YOU ARE A BIDBOT USER, OR EVEN OWNER, YOU ARE NOT BEING ATTACKED HERE. SO AS EVER, LET ME KNOW BELOW WHAT YOU THINK!