Can #NoBidBots be the alternative to Trending?

I don't know about you, but I find the Steemit trending page fairly useless these days. It's full of what are effectively promoted posts. Mostly those are of no interest to me. If something is important then I'll probably see it on my feed anyway as someone will re-steem it.

Lots of people say you have to buy votes to get anywhere, but I think it's still possible to build a following without them. Make a community around a hashtag for a topic you enjoy. #RunningProject is a great example of this. Have contests and challenges in the community to keep people active. Maybe have one account share posts using the tag so that everyone will see them. This is a stopgap until we get the proper communities functionality.

I know a few people are using the #NoBidBots and #NoBidBot tags to indicate they are not buying votes. I'm seeing good content under those, and not just me.

Okay, so we may not get mega-rewards this way, but from what I understand it's not that profitable to buy votes. I'd rather get mine from other users who care about what I do. I don't mind not getting hundreds of 'nice', 'follow me' comments. I may miss out on some whale attention, but I expect they have their own ways to find stuff to vote on. I get a very few votes of more and a dollar and I'm grateful for those. To be frank I think my posts get about what they are worth.

I'm using my votes to support those who need it rather than chasing curation rewards. That's too much like hard work for me and the returns will be minimal anyway.

It's an interesting time for Steemit. The Steem price is falling, along with every other coin. Site views may have bottomed out, but are not that impressive for now. It's going to get interesting when we get the next hardfork and Steemit Inc start doing some proper marketing. Then we may get to millions of active users and you will really have to fight for attention. Now is a good time to build a following of genuinely interested people who will stick with you. Hive account@donnadavisart compared Steemit to a village and that's pretty much what it is, although it may be more of a frontier town preyed on by cattle barons and outlaws. In a year it may be a city and those are easier to get lost in.

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