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So I was hanging out in the general channel of the Steemit Rocket chat and after being slightly bored I check out a link that was shared. If you don't feel like checking the link it's cool. I understand. I'm lazy too.
Basically it offers a service of a random whale upvote between 1 and 100% for the price of 1 Steem or SBD. All you have to do is transfer the funds over and paste the URL of the post that you want upvoted in the public memo.
I initially thought I was throwing my hard earned SBD in the can but just wanted to test it.
The results of the first run were okay. I made a few extra bucks but more importantly, I brought some new activity to the post.
I thought it was pretty neat and decided to give it one more go.
SCORE!!! It ended up boosting my post about 30% of it's original value with an 88% vote.
I was excited about this new tool but then I started to feel like I might be doing something ethically wrong. I was also tossing around the benefits in my head.
Here are my thoughts on the subject:
This could be amazing for post promotion. I mean honestly who reads the promotion section? Because I sure don't. For the people who poured their hearts into great content and maybe just posted at the wrong time this could give your post the boost you need for some additional visibility. I would argue that this is not only cheaper, but has more of an impact than the other alternative.
Powering down is tempting for me at times, so I know it has to be tempting at whale status. Programs like these could be great incentives for whales to hold on to their assets. The more we have powered up the better. Scarcity will drive the price of our tokens up and that's great for everyone involved.
Posts that have huge payouts will get even bigger. This obviously could be countered with some flags but it's easy to let things fall through the cracks sometimes. I'm sure most people would have the thought process that if they only had to pay 1 SBD to potentially get paid hundreds or thousands of dollars they'd do it.
It (slightly) breaks the reputation system. If there were enough of these services made available then users could possibly abuse/break current contests/services that require a certain rep as a prerequisite. Low ranking accounts could shit post and gain some ground in reputation points. (Wouldn't this possibly make us vulnerable to Sybil attacks?)
I think that this is a very innovative piece of entrepreneurship and the benefits of great for the average Steemit user. I however don't know what negative impact it will bring on the community. The human element of greed in me wanted to keep this under wraps all for myself. The love for my community made me want to bring up the discussion in a post. I guess I love you all more than I love money.
Write down what you think about 