Bidbots
I am sure all of you have seen people talking about bidbots on the blockchain. Some people are for them, some are against them. Most of them are wrong!
Bidbots, like @minnowbooster,
@booster,
@sneakyninja, exist so that you can pay money to get an upvote on your post. They market themselves as a way to market your own posts, pushing them up into trending. Thus, allowing more users to see the content and getting you more upvotes.
While this might be true, the real nature of bidbots are never revealed publicly. Their sole purpose is to profit from your hard earned sbd, and to take away profit from everyone else.
How does this work? Simple!
You pay 2sbd for a vote that will net you 2sbd at the time of purchase. But as we know, markets change. Thus, you are gambling with the fact that steem will stay at the same price for your 7 day waiting period. Yes, by using bidbots, you are gambling!
Furthermore, steem is designed so that all the users have to decide whether the content you post is worth upvoting. If you aren't naturally getting upvotes, chances are, your content sucks. Buying upvotes aren't going to make your content any better.
PLUS, and this one is the most IMPORTANT, every time you buy an upvote, you are stealing from everyone else on the blockchain! Steem payouts work according to a reward pool. A limited amount of steem is created everyday and split up between all the posts and comments that have been upvoted.
If you're buying a 40sbd upvote, that's 40sbd less for the rest of us. So by using bidbots, you are a thief. And you will be labeled as such by me.
So stop using bidbots. Allow people to decide whether they like your content or not. If you want to market your content, do it the right way. Post it on twitter, facebook, discord, etc. Talk to people about it. Create a following. And be cool.
Minimum SBD payout
When I first came onto steemit, I didn't have this problem. But recently I have noticed that it has become a thing. The minimum payout has been set to 0.02 sbd. If your posts and comments don't get more than this, your payout is automatically set to ZERO.
Why is this a problem?
When you first start out on the blockchain, you have a delegated share of around 15 SP. Which gives you around 0.002 SBD voting worth.
You won't have any followers. And you will need a lot of luck to be seen. Meaning, your first couple of weeks on the blockchain won't get ANY payouts.
When I started, I built my SP by self-votes. I got my 0.002SBD every post and comment, and slowly I was able to build up my SP so that I no longer needed the delegated share that was given by steemit.inc.
YOU CANNOT DO THIS ANYMORE.
Why is this happening?
It's supposed to stop spam on the blockchain. I do not see how this stops spam. But that is the argument I've seen. In my opinion, spam isn't a problem. If it were a problem, then no social network would exist.
The only conclusion I can come to, is that the higher ups don't want new users to succeed here.
Savings account
Many of you have seen the savings account in your wallet. Not many of you have used it. Why would you? It serves no purpose.
Sure, it protects your sbd and steem from instant withdrawals by giving you a 3 day withdrawal period. But what good does that do you? If someone wants your money, they will get it anyway.
The purpose of any savings account is designed to give interest on investment. But because of greed, interest on SBD no longer exists on the blockchain. Interest rates have been set to 0 for months now. So it can rather be named a vault. You're better off saving your steem in a fiat savings account.
*It seems that you do however get interest on SP. So power up that SBD.
With ZERO interest, it is not a savings account, it is a mattress.
How can you fight this screwiness?
Stop voting for greedy witnesses! The top 20 witnesses are all screwing you by implementing these systems. Start voting for the people who want you to succeed. Definitely don't vote for @sircork because he's a liar and a thief.
Educate yourself
For bidbots, check how the reward pool in the whitepaper works and then use some common sense.
For checking the minimum sbd payout, check the source code here: https://github.com/steemit/devportal, or your own payouts.
For checking interest rates, check your wallet.