People who know me will know that I care very much about sustainable growth and the health of both diversity and financial freedom for everyone.
As such, the fact that I have for many years earned online, from the Internet so to say, is no surprise. Neither is it surprising that this has allowed me to broaden my horizons because I have worked with people from different cultures and continent. Heck, it even led me to South-East Asia where I currently live. Live and fight for a healthier spread of riches in society, for a wealthier middle class, for an ever smaller demographic group the poor.
Yes, I do support planned parenthood, you conservatives. But different story, alright?
Once I joined Steemit and had spent some days browsing and reading the platform, it soon became obvious to me that bots play a big role here. Which... I like.
I'm all about bots and before joining Steemit, I have configured multiple messenger bots for small stores here where I live.
Your local sari-sari store can now take orders and deliver on Facebook! With a messenger bot.
Yet, on Steem we are mostly talking a different kind of bots: the upvote bots.
And there's many of those. Too many? Yes.
Do they serve a purpose? Yes.
Are the best ones in constant evolution because the teams behind them did start them from a well-meant grassroots approach? Yes, at least I like to think they are.
Do I like them? No.
Sometimes life is indeed as simple as YES/NO and the outcome here is no. Nothing more, nothing less. Just no.
Content Discovery
With more 400,000 accounts at the time of writing it isn't easy to find awesome content on Steemit. Of course, we all follow people we like and whose content fits us, but I don't know about you but I always want to explore more, discover new.
Not necessarily follow somebody new but most definitely read new, awesome articles and essays. As such I love, and follow, several indie curation projects here on Steem. The most popular ones being 
If you have more time, you can also easily follow the votes of the 
Upvote bots tho? Automated upvote bots? Meh.
I'm a Hypocrite
So what led me to write this post? Obviously, as the title gave away, I joined an automated upvote service. That's right, ladies and gents, I'm a hypocrite.
Worse so even when I tell you why I did join that service. At least the main reason of it.
Let's be honest here for a second, shall we? Anybody who joined Steem(it) is here from a financial angle.
It's really that simple, there's no way around, we all came here for the rewards, and stayed for the community. Well, some are still here only for the rewards.
It's what Steem is about.
I don't care what you say. Money, the rewards, were why you joined here. Just as they were why I joined here.
We all may have multiple other reasons why we joined, or are still here, but money was the most compelling one and why we joined. Even those who were brought over by friends. Earning from votes/comments and even posting is the why.
It was all about the money.
Now imagine that during your Steem exploration you run into a service which mixes both content discovery and monnies. Better even, after a very brief analysis you realize that the ROI is too good to say no to. Unless of course, you're stupid.
What if you could earn the investment needed back in less than a month of daily posting? Without needing to do anything. No need to regularly transfer a fee with your URL, know when the upvote bot is awake, or participate to bidding wars.
Just pay once and done.
That's all. Pay once and done and dusted.
And it's an indie project too.
That's got to be love at first sight, isn't it?
Introducing Qurator
So I did join 
First and foremost because the math is too darn good. While Qurator is still a young and small community, with not too much SP for its bot yet, given the investment is only SBD 2 for a lifetime membership, you can only win.
Just have a look at these rewards, which are tier-based btw:
| Tier | Vote weight | Vote worth |
|---|---|---|
| Basic membership | 6% | $0.13 |
| Upvote Weight T1 | 9% | $0.20 |
| Upvote Weight T2 | 13% | $0.28 |
| Upvote Weight T3 | 16% | $0.33 |
| Upvote Weight T4 | 19% | $0.40 |
| Upvote Weight T5 | 22% | $0.46 |
Each member can earn one daily upvote for their content, based on which tier they are in. Leveling up is easy, you can reach T1 or T2 merely by upvoting the daily quration post. To reach the higher tiers you have to delegate some Steem Power or lease STEEM. But still only small amounts, it takes only a 500 Steem Power delegation to be a T5 member.
Qurator is a service tailored to minnows, to new Steem members who loathe seeing $0.01 below their post. And it's a financially super viable investment.
For only 4 upvotes of the daily qurator post in a week, you become a T1 member. For 7 upvotes in a week, you become a T2 member.
At the current upvote value levels that means that after 10 days of posting only, or less, you have made back your investment. Only (day)traders will beat that ROI.
Plus, your membership is a lifetime membership.
But there's more to it
As the service's name gives away, it is a curation project. The daily Qurator post is selected from the content crafted by all qurator members.
Obviously, this being Steem(it), there's a Discord community to idle in and get to know other Steemians as well.
So, what are you waiting for? How much longer until you transfer those SBD to
Are those returns too good for you? I hear ya, they're too small and you only deal with hundreds of bucks per post, right? That's fine, we probably don't need to discover your content anymore. You probably hit the hot and trending pages often enough already.
Until then tho, I will just continue to find new indie Circles of Jerks, hang out with them and discover new content each day. New, and most often, not too popular content yet.
A healthy and wise place to drop my upvote. Even if so far I can offer only a penny for everyone's thoughts.
And I thank hypocrite ROI optimised me and making my biz sense tingle. Qurator,
Note: The sari-sari store currently doesn't take any orders via messenger because their delivery bike has broken down. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯