It appears that I have Stumbled Upon the Most Interesting Self-Voting Work-Around Scheme

Brief Background: Whales have been discouraged from spending their votes on themselves (and others) due to the significant dilution it would create in the rewards pool. In turn, they have been limited in their interaction on the Steemit Platform ... Until Now.

It looks like I may have found the answer to Lesson #4!
And it turns out that I didn't even need to run any SteemSQL Analysis to do it ...

Have you noticed how many NEW voting bots are popping up?

There is absolutely no need for these things. How many bots do you need on this platform where you send them Liquid STEEM / SBD and they give you an up-vote!?

All they do is continue to dilute the Steem Rewards Pool for everyone. We should only allow REAL PEOPLE to vote, not Bots. Votes affect the Rewards Pool. Bots should not be affecting the Rewards Pool.

Imagine that.. the platform which was built for the everyday person and meant to not be a "Pay to Play" platform, has become exactly that.

If you're a small fish in the giant Steemit Ocean, you are likely using [or have tried using] one [or many] of these bots to get your posts some recognition and to share in the Rewards Pool. Of course, in order for these bots to succeed and provide a considerable value, they need to have a considerable amount of Steem Power, or in other words: to be run by Whales [or possibly Dolphins on occasion]. Whales and Dolphins are the only ones on Steemit who have enough Steem Power to make this scheme work.

Now if you're the average user who signed on to Steemit because you truly believed in its underlying values, you might be thinking "I'm not here for the money, I could care less about sending my hard-earned SBD to a bot just to receive a measly reward!". I'm right there with you. But I will admit that I stumble every so often when a post of mine doesn't get much recognition, despite a considerable amount of effort on my part to create original, interesting and useful content.

On the flip-side, if you're one of the individuals who set up a bot, you might be thinking "I'm not here for the money, I set this up in order to help Minnows get a larger share of the Rewards Pool." The problem with this line of thinking is that you're looking at Steemit as a Platform to Earn Money as a First Priority. Earning money is the "added benefit" of Steemit, not the function ... Or at least that's what I got out of reading the Steem WhitePaper.

Unfortunately, it appears that this is what Steemit has become, and it may be the growing trend of the future. If the platform truly discouraged and punished the "Pay to Play" attitude, these bots will be weeded out and banned.

Here's the Amazing Scheme being used:

Create a bot.
Delegate 70k or so Steem Power to the bot; whatever the going rate is for a 3-5% upvote yielding somewhere near the fee being charged to receive an upvote from the bot.
Have the bot accept bids for votes (you can literally Copy the Code for this from Github, so there's effectively no Technical Expertise Required).
Send your SBD to the bot as part of the normal bidding process like everyone else.
Profit from your SP without Self-Voting.
Profit from others' Liquid STEEM / SBD that they're sending to your bot -- because, well, Votes are Free to Make for the Bot!

Coming up with a Resolution:

I don't feel that the accounts who created the bots need to be directly punished. The bots should be disbanded and whatever Liquid Steem / Steem Power / SBD currently exists in the bots at the time of dissolution should be redistributed to the overall Steem Rewards Pool.

After-all, we live in a Capitalist Society and these individuals were simply Seizing the Opportunity in front of them!

I simply want the playing field to be leveled out a bit, as opposed to seeing the Rich get Richer and the Poor get Poorer...

Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
Steem On, Fellow Steemians!

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Thanks for reading, I hope you have a great day! _____________________________________________________

If you want to read more, please take a look at some of my other posts:

The Epic Failure of Steemit, and Why you Should Care