Quitting, I just did - Open letter

Is it possible to live from #Steemit? Many people think this is not possible. I believe those whom think it is not possible it is just because they see it as a hobby. Others are living of it because they see it as a real life commitment and a daily job.

Hello Steemians, I hope you are all having a great time in here. Please feel free to contact me anytime you may need help or guidance. Well, I know I am a bit dramatic. The title says Quitting.... I have quitted from today, to keep my self using Bidbots¹.

I truly believe #steemit has the potential to change the social networks as we know them. I also believe than there is no sense in buying votes when we are dealing with a real community of Bloggers and Writers whom approve the content anytime they do click for an upvote. If you check my profile, specifically my wallet you may until some days ago I was using the Bidbots. In this article I will explain what my plans are, the why and also some good advices for the whole #Steemit community.

_{1: A bidbot is an automated account that basically gives you an upvote in exchange of money, a.k.a Steem Dollars or Steem. Examples: @minnowbooster, @appreciator, @smartsteem, @buildawhale, etc.}

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Bidbots for the win? or for the laziness?

This is a very delicated subject. Some people may say that it is alright using bots. Some other may say it is not the best choice. In my humble opinion I can answer it in a double way:

1. It is a self-delusion mostly for the buyer of votes. My latest research, shows me that after the 25% curation fee, the Return of Investment is on red numbers.

2. It may help you gain exposure and followers and automatised the work.^**.

_{**: IMHO, a real member of #Steemit takes the time to read, curate and upvote instead of just selling his voting power.}

Many serious communities out there and many members consider this self-delusion practice as a very bad habit which may cause you never getting an upvote from serious Bloggers and curation communities. I could say many people in #Steemit still do the work of searching a good article, reading it and giving it an upvote depending on the quality of writing. This is why I am quitting using Bidbots. Currently I am running a curation community so I won't give a bad example to new users and also the regular ones.

So are you calling all the whales whom create/use a Bot, lazy people?

If the whale² is a very busy person who cannot curate by himself and there is no way to delegate some of his Voting Power to a community or group of people whom may do the task, then I could say it is somewhat valid creating a BidBot, but what is the true meaning of all of this(Steemit) if we just want to pursue more money instead of quality of posts? I cannot judge people but I do have the rights to draw some attention in order to improve ourselves as a real community of bloggers where the good content is our more important resource.

So who is the lazy one?

I would dare to say that the Lazy one is the person who uses the BidBots in order to just gain more money or to promote trash. For example, today I read this amazing article that propose something that may help Steemit for the better and I cannot believe the actual state of the network where there is a lot of posts in trending section just because of the BidBots. The post I have just told you about it should be within the trending section for sure.

_{2: A "whale" is an account with massive Voting Power. Theoretically is an account who has the power to decide the future of the network.}

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My personal experience after more than 1 year using Bots

At the beginning of using bots, due to some key factors like #Steem's price was very high and BidBots were "giving away" more than 300% of the initial vote purchase, everything was going amazing. I didn't realise the damage I was doing and the laziness I was creating all around me. One year after that, I have proved myself than using Bots doesn't work anymore and does not align with the higher purposes of this platform. Steemit was intended to create amazing content, great projects and to give life to many incredible ideas.

My "new plan"

Keep myself writing, curating, promoting #Steemit, without having the pressure of being pursuing more money. We all can make money by other means and it is just matter of time, patience and a lot of practice. I consider we have a great opportunity here to show the to Internet-world than a social network can share amazing content and give real reward to people.

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Living of Steemit?

This is one question too often I get a lot. Many people in Venezuela ask me about this. At the beginning I was in a hype just answering Yes, you can, we all can. Right now after doing a lot of research I can openly say:

For a regular user, who is not a whale, nor a big investor, nor somebody who do not have the support of 3 or 4 whales accounts, living of publishing on Steemit it is just like Chasing the unicorns. It means it is not possible.

The ways some people can live of Steemit and use this as a real income in a monthly basis, based on my research are:

• Maintaining a Witness and keeping it within the top 30.
• Creating a real business around Steemit.
• Among others...You may quote the ones you know within the comment section bellow.

So this bring up the question: Should we treat steemit as a hobby or as a real Blogging/Writers platform? I truly believe we can change people's lives but if we keep doing what we are doing in this platform, we may not affect people in the best way.

The ways I see to make it happen

Decentralising real power to the people. I know the Steemit developers had work too hard to make this happen, also the core team but, all of this potential needs to be opened and re-directed to the writing/blogging community. It is not fair giving just "pieces" of the reward pay to people who are truly constructing great posts and projects. It is not nice how I see many good bloggers leaving #Steemit just because they cannot be part of the core group, almost an Elite.

Creating our money or more money for the biggest Steem holders?

At the beginning I was amazed realising that in fact Steemit is creating it's own Steems and we are keeping together an economy. I still see this as something great but, what are we doing with such power of creating money? what do we do now if the money was the problem and now we have it?

I see many people publishing a lot of great articles. Many of these people are doing an amazing work. I see many people publishing garbage and promoting trash themselves. I truly believe in diversity. This is necessary in order to have different points of view and many types of perspectives. What I cannot understand is not solving primary issues in order to really reward people. If we see this as a hobby we could change the old slogan from:

Steemit: Write, Publish and get rewarded
for something like:
Steemit: A nice writing hobby. Come and join us.

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_{Maybe as @rok-sivante said: "For Quora, such an arrangement could be a huge win." - source}

So theghost what do you propose?

My proposal

1. Demanding big Steem holders to start supporting each and every curation community or you may ask them to sell their accounts. Many people may do the work. Many people would be happy while curating for a living, organising world meet ups for a living, supervising real world changing projects all around steemit and its people.
2. Organising users in some categories. In a very hilarious way we talk about plancton, minnows, dolphins, whales. Why not creating a real user category where people can be named for what they do here? If some members are just here for the money, they may be categorised as Investors and also work/publish/curate related content to their area. If some members just want to complain about the platform and they do not want to work for this, then put them in another category.
3. Supervising the work of curating communities. Create jobs, I mean real jobs for people whom may want to work as Steemit Investigators of the actual projects going on. We have the work force right here and right now.
4. Changing the "Beta Mode" for a final Steemit version. Having a beta for more than 2 years it may be seeing as we are yet complete, we need to keep doing tests. After 2 years of continuos work and improvements, what else do we need to keep trying?
5. Open the registration system once for all. It is not necessary to keep "protecting this" from all the users that may come from internet to really take advantage of the platform. I cannot explain you how frustrating it is for me explaining people 2 hours just talking about how to sign in and explaining them "why do we need to wait 1 week to get an account".
6. Control over big STEEM holders. I mean, after doing some research I can see than the ones with the most Steem balance can change many deep things in the platform and decide very important things around here. Have you ever though making a psychological test to all the whales in order to know if they have the human values they need to handle so much money/power?
7. Take into account the last post of @rok-sivante. Integrating Quora into the STEEM blockchain may bring millions of users and we, as a community, as a whole, We NEED TO THINK OUT of The BOX. This means we need to look outside and partner up with other big websites. We cannot keep ourselves focusing in STEEM, or Steemit, or @ned, or @blocktrades. We need once for all, expand our circle of action and start affecting positively the outside Internet-World.

With love for all of you guys: @ausbitbank, @themarkymark, @ned, @blocktrades, @cervantes, @freedom, @pumpkin and to all of you in here. Thanks for your time to read this article. STEEM ON, boys and girls.