Steem Experiment #1: Is Upvoting Comments through @RandoWhale Profitable?

I've been on Steemit for more than a week already and have noticed that my earnings are not that promising. Now, I'm looking for ways on how anyone can start earning a good amount here on Steemit. So, I created the series called Steem Experiment.

So, to those who don't know about @randowhale, @randowhale is a bot that auto-upvotes your post or comment with a voting weight of 2%-5% for only 1 SBD (Steem Dollar).

The Experiment

For now, I will be using @randowhale's service to upvote my comments. Here are the specific steps I did:

1. I used an old post and commented 8 times.
2. I invested 8 SBD to use @randowhale's service for the 8 comments.
3. And the results? Check the screenshots below.

The Outcome

The Verdict

There are two sides here. One is for the long-term while the other is for the short-term.

Verdict #1:
Upvoting comments is NOT PROFITABLE if you're doing this for a short-term gain since the liquid SBD you will receive is less than the investment. In this case, I invested 8 SBD and received 5.15625 SBD in return which has a -2.84375 profit.

Verdict #2:
If you're in for a long-term gain, this is PROFITABLE. This is profitable since you are investing to your SP and at the same time, you're getting a portion in return to upvote your other comments/posts as well. If you also use @randowhale to upvote your comments, your comments will rank higher on the comments section and more people will see it, and will probably upvote it too if they like the content. You may also gain followers in the process.

What's your take on this? Let me know in the comments section below! UPVOTE, RESTEEM, and FOLLOW me for more Steem Experiments!