I'm Paul Adams, selfie from minutes ago. This is my first post as 
I consider I'm on a mission. This requires lots of people to read – and use -- “my stuff”. For the sake of this post, it doesn't really matter what it is or even how valid it is. Having devoted thousands of hours and decades to it obviously I think it's worthwhile. I give away my web-based services free of charge. I don't have a family or expensive life-style to support. I'm 68, not interested in personal fame, not interested in Steemit as an income source.
I've been on Steemit for 58 days now, made 24 high-quality posts (I think), and 142 mostly-thoughtful comments. Within 24 hours of starting, I had 125 followers somehow, many with single-digit reps. I bought 1000+ SP, intending to increase my visibility, but to no avail. 12 days ago my rep was 35, and next to no-one seemed to read my posts. All the upvotes seemed to come from bots or my five openly-sockpuppet accounts: 
It seemed that the average Steemian, posting untrashily but nothing to write home about, had a rep of 60 or more.
Then I discovered bidbots. As I write this my
On average, these posts have garnered 75-100 upvotes and zero legitimate (other than bots and sometimes “cool post bro!”) comments. There is one proper comment earlier today, from someone [I'll edit the post and name him with his permission] who seems to have actually read and digested an entire post on my own blog, in a decent response to a comment I had just made on his blog. This is the first known time I am aware of that someone read a whole blog post of mine, despite over a thousand upvotes. I have had several decent conversations with people who were clearly reading what I wrote, but on their own blogs.
My pay-60SBD-for-play posts have each been trending in their categories. Do they deserve to in their own right? They are not trending because of community interaction and support. Each of these posts generates a few new followers, but I don't know if this is because they've been blown away by the awesome content or because they think they might make a few more pennies in mindlessly upvoting them. Am I denying space in these not-that-popular categories to people with legitimate followings?
I'll probably pay-for-play this post too, partly as an experiment to see what happens, and partly, well, because
Heh.
EDIT: 40 Steem payment: Rep 25 --> 49
EDIT 2: 40 Steem payment: Rep 49 --> 52 (post #2)
EDIT 3: 120 Steem payment: Rep 52.9 --> 55.9 (post #3)
EDIT 4: 120 Steem payment: Rep 55.9 --> 57.8 (post #4)
EDIT 5: 120 Steem payment: Rep 57.8 --> 59.2 (post #5)
EDIT 6: 120 Steem payment: Rep 59.2 --> 60.2 (post #6)
EDIT 7: 120 Steem payment: Rep 60.2 --> 60.9 (post #7)
EDIT 8: 120 Steem payment: Rep 60.9 --> 61.6 (post #8)
EDIT 9: 120 Steem payment: Rep 61.6 --> 62.2 (post #10)
EDIT 10: 120 Steem payment: Rep 62.2 --> 62.6 (post #9)
EDIT 11: 120 Steem payment: Rep 62.6 --> 63.0 (post #11)
EDIT 12: 120 Steem payment: Rep 63.0 --> 63.4 (post #12)
EDIT 13: 120 Steem payment: Rep 63.4 --> 63.8 (post #13)
EDIT 14: 120 Steem payment: Rep 63.8 --> 64.1 (post #14)
EDIT 15: 120 Steem payment: Rep 64.1 --> 64.5 (post #15)
EDIT 16: 120 Steem payment: Rep 64.5 --> 64.8 (post #16)
EDIT 17: 120 Steem payment: Rep 64.8 --> 65.0 (post #17)
EDIT 18: 120 Steem payment: Rep 65.0 --> 65.224 (post #18)
EDIT 19: 120 Steem payment: Rep 65.224 --> 65.455 (post #19)
EDIT 20: 120 Steem payment: Rep 65.455 --> 65.690 (post #20)
EDIT 21: 120 Steem payment: Rep 65.690 --> 65.895 (post #21)
EDIT 22: 120 Steem payment: Rep 65.895 --> 66.076 (post #22)
EDIT 23: 120 Steem payment: Rep 66.076 --> 66.250 (post #22)
Also see yawnguy2/the-bidbot-dilemma-part-2
