When I first started my adventure here on the STEEM blockchain, it was a very different landscape. There were no bidbots, there were no alternative front ends, like the one I'm using now, Busy.org, and the way things worked was very different. I remember being a new user and using the promoted tab to actually gain exposure and find content and it's not something I really talk about much anymore, but I still check the promoted tab. Today I want to talk about why I think that the Promoted tab and using the promoted system is something we should get back to doing as a community.
I should start this off by clearing up that this isn't a hit piece against bidbots. I've written a few of those in the past, and honestly with more perspective it's easy to see that bidbots are just the answer to whales that got criticized for self voting. Personally I don't think anyone should be paying to help whales bypass the 7 day waiting period on claiming rewards, but you can all make your own decisions. The nature of any proof of stake system is that you earn based on holding and the owners of the stake are entitled to their earnings.
That being said, let's discuss a way that I feel actually benefits the platform and adds value for every user. If we use the Promoted system, we are burning SBD to compete to put our posts higher up the list of the promoted tab. It's kind of interesting how no one talks about this tab or feature at all. I understand the logic that bidbots are giving us back some of the money that we spend, but let's logically think about this: Can we magically create value by spending nothing? Unless we are the Federal Reserve and print money on a whim, I don't think we're seeing the big picture here (not that I'd claim that anything the Fed does is beneficial in the long term).
So why is burning SBD and using the Promoted tab actually beneficial to the platform? To understand that, we have to realize that SBD is a debt instrument. We are basically devaluing STEEM when we over print SBD by splitting the core value of the STEEM ecosystem between multiple tokens. There are other code related reasons and systems that can explain why SBD is a debt instrument, but I don't want this to be an overly technical post. Essentially my entire stance is based on the belief that SBD is designed to be burned. Burning tokens creates scarcity and increases value of the ecosystem. Let's summarize this section with: Burning debt = repaying loans and makes STEEM more valuable.
A cool thing to note about this feature is that anyone can promote any post that is still in the payout window. If one of our friends does something cool and you want to help it gain visibility, many of us don't have hundreds of SBD laying around to put a post in trending, but we could help move their post up the Promoted tab for any tiny amount of SBD that we want to contribute. We can do this for our own posts as well. It's also a compounding affect. What that means is that there isn't a limit on how many times we can promote a post and it collectively allows friends to work together to promote a post higher than they can alone. If we put 1 SBD on a post to promote it and then another friend puts 0.5 SBD on a post to promote it, the post is collectively promoted to 1.5 SBD and moves up the Promoted tab ahead of any posts that spent less than that amount on promotion.
I know in the short term mindset, it seems like we're losing something. I get it. Honestly, I got out of the habit of using the Promoted feature as I felt that no one looks at that tab anymore, but I've been looking at the tab more often for the last few months and I can assure you that some users are massively benefiting from using it. There are many tags that you can be at the top of the Promoted section of for under 1 SBD. Isn't that kind of amazing? If we simply use the tool built into the system that is actually designed for promotion, we promote the system to run the way it was designed to do and increase the value of the platform for all users. Just some food for thought, but I'll be using the Promoted tab more often going forward. Namaste.