Buying Upvotes creates a snowball effect.
Users are forced into paying for upvotes if they want to find themselves on the Hot page or the Trending page. The dollar amounts are very high. Each time this happens, a minimum upvote amount is needed just to get on the Hot/Trending page. The duration that a blog stays on the page depends on the value of the vote. It is not just good enough to meet the minimum vote amount because your blog will be pushed out by competition. One must buy more upvotes to keep the blog on the page for a duration of time. This creates a snowball effect. Each user must try to buy larger upvotes than the others to keep them floating on top of the sea of other users that want their articles to be viewed. There is no end to this madness. When will we see $10,000 upvotes? How about $50,000 upvotes? Eventually, the amount of upvotes can overwhelm the possible ability to downvote the blogs.
The upvote service owners know this and they are the ones who profit from it. If you are using an upvote service you are lining their pockets and doing a disservice to Steemit.
Supposedly in the future with a new democratic vote weight system along with oracles is supposedly going to reduce the profitability of upvote services. That day can't come soon enough.
What can you do to help until that day come?
Don't vote for witnesses that support, operate, fund, or develop paid upvote services. It is up to you to choose leadership that support paid upvote services or leadership that are against them.
What do you think of paid upvote services?
Please remember to VOTE and ReSteem
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For a breakdown of Steemit Keys:
https://steemit.com/life/@socky/do-you-understand-your-steemit-key
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https://steemit.com/steemit/@socky/why-is-steem-power-important-beginners-read