Have you ever wondered why certain countries legalize guns while others do not? Should not it be a tool for enforcing laws or providing protection? Unfortunately, a gun is too powerful to be black or white. There are gray areas in the discussion or legalization of guns, even if they are only a tool.
Take a look at a hacker.
When hackers are caught, they are rarely sentenced to death; instead, they are imprisoned for life or placed under house arrest. Why?
They are a valuable asset when used properly, but they can also cripple a country's economy and cause national damage. Their coding skills have the potential to be revolutionary, but they choose to use them for criminal purposes. The skills themselves are not the problem; it is how they are applied that is.
Auto vote is a Hive tool
..... and because of how it can influence how the reward pool is distributed, we have never been able to determine whether it is beneficial or detrimental. Yes, the influence it carries is the reason, but there is no reason to agree that it is entirely good or bad.
Personally, I have auto-votes on and for. This tool allows me to schedule my voting power, direct it where it should go, and, most importantly, ensure that I never reach 100%. Why is it so important that it does not reach 100%? Because if it does, it benefits no one.
We can't ask people to come in, invest on the token and still force to spend time to earn the APR (ROI) we promised them by doing the curation job, they can choose to do it of their own free will, but we know that in-real-life events can stop people from fully participating here, which is completely understandable and why we have options for automation.
Sure, if they do this, it will be better for the Blockchain's health, but we must also offer them the concept of "sleep and let my money work for me."
This magical ad word is also one of our strongest suits, right?
Whether an investor or a user prefers, they should have the option of doing it manually or automatically. If someone chooses the automatic option, it implies that whoever they choose to automate their vote for may abuse it.
Abuse is harmful to the Blockchain, diluting the value of an investor's or user's investment; however, even though this is a possibility and is evident on-chain, we cannot remove the automation of votes because this is how your investment works for you if you choose to be vested but not emotionally or actively involved with the chain. However, this is difficult to do.
On the other hand, it is difficult for an investor not to become emotionally involved with their investment; however, some Hive investors who are actively using auto votes to earn ROI on their investments trust the systems to combat abuse; unfortunately, they forget that they must share some of those responsibilities.
It is not news that many users who benefit from auto votes abuse the system. I believe it is a human tendency. People have a tendency to abuse the privileges that have been bestowed upon them; they occasionally succumb to this temptation and allow themselves to be carried away.
We can not fight how people choose to abuse their privileges; sometimes they will interpret it incorrectly, and it will turn into a war. Most people try to combat abuse with downvotes, but downvotes cause chaos and should only be used as a last resort.
This is why I believe withdrawal, check and balance, and constant awareness and presence by investors and users are the most effective ways to prevent abuse.
For example, a person abusing auto votes can be checked by the group of people who granted them these privileges. When this occurs, the abuser has no reason to complain because they already know why their privileges have been revoked, but this is where the problem arises.
More than half of the people/users/investors who set up autos and add abusers become too lazy to monitor their autos or the on-chain activities of these accounts. This again reminds us that curation takes time. It takes time because it requires setting autos, adding, removing, and readjusting.
This is why we now have partial sheriffs or mopols on the Blockchain who use downvotes to combat automated abuse.
This shouldn't have been the way, but because the individual who should share the responsibility of curbing abuse have grown complacent with their autos when they could have just spent a little time to redirectthat auto somewhere else.
People will always abuse privileges, with the exception of those who have been disciplined and demonstrate some form of decency and contentment. When there are no check and balance, people can slip into greed, irresponsibility and abuse.
This boils down to the fact that Curation is a time-consuming task, and as a result, abuse of autos thrives throughout the chain. Is this the fault of the tool? No. I have seen countless instances of abuse thrive on the chain; someone commented on my previous post and pointed this out, and they were correct.
However, we fail to address the elephant in the room: the stakeholders who enable this to flourish. I know a big investor/account that only does autos, and 95% of their autos are completely abused. The last time this account was present on-chain was probably years ago and have hardly visited those autos.
I understand that a curation reward is a curation reward, regardless of whether it was obtained from an abuser, but these rewards must be of sufficient value for the investor to consistently remain profitable and compound their earnings.
The biggest culprits are those who allow abusers to operate freely, and I believe we do not look at it enough from this perspective.
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