I'm not even a week into my challenge of not using voting bots for a month and I'm already seeing the mistake I've made by using them in the first place. Over the past couple of weeks, I've read a lot of posts defending the use of voting bots and I agreed with most of them. Now my opinion has completely changed. Why? I'll explain that below!
False Sense of Accomplishment
In the beginning, I thought that the only way to grow on Steemit, was by using voting bots to artificially bump up my posts. I saw plenty of other people doing it and started using them, after convincing myself that I was just doing it to increase my post's visibility.
Now that I've stopped using them for about a week, I'm starting to realize what kind of damage I've done. I'm not talking about damage I've done to my Steemit account by the way. No, I mean that I've given myself a false sense of accomplishment when I didn't deserve it. I've played a trick on the reward center in my brain, that's one way of describing it.
At the end of the day, it's easy to think you're being successful on Steemit, just because you see these nice, big numbers under your post. At least for me, I felt that those numbers were an accurate representation of the value of my posts, even though these numbers were largely artificial.
My 'AHA!' Moment
Today I've had my 'AHA!' moment, or more accurately, my 'DAMN!' moment. I've realized that I've been doing myself a great disservice by using these voting bots. I've tried to skip a necessary part of the path to Steemit success, by taking the easy road. I should have gone through the grind of writing articles and earning small successes along the way. Instead I opted for the get-rich-quick scheme, by just buying my way into Steemit success.
Seeing how much my posts made without making use of any voting bots, made me realize that I had been duping myself into believing I was more successful than I actually was. I'm sure that I even lost some respect from part of the Steemit community.
Not any more, I'm certain that I will not use them again in the future. I'd rather take the hard road from now on, by growing on the basis of merit, instead of just buying my success. Even if it means that it will go 100 times as slow as before.
Change
I'll focus more on participating more actively in the various communities that exist on Steemit. I've already made some friends here, so it's not that this would be too difficult to expand on. For now, I really just want to get rid of that yucky feeling that I've gotten when I realized what kind of mistake I've made.
Note: I'm not against other people making use of voting bots, this post is only meant to somewhat clear my own conscience.