This is not meant to criticize the wonderful piece of work that the developers of Steemit have created. This is merely an observation that I am sure many of you have felt and I simply wanted to put it into my own words as a way of processing my feelings. So far I have had a fantastic experience.
I have noticed a pattern in which certain authors’ posts are immediately upvoted starting with around $200 in rewards within the first 30 minutes. This phenomenon I have come to call becoming a SteemTrain. A SteemTrain is when an author has multiple successful posts in succession. The effect of which is that the author gains multiple followers and bots. Each new post becomes a race to see who can board the train the fastest trying to claim the curation award. I believe a lot of these popular posts are upvoted so that the vote is cast, more often than not, before the post is read.
Don't get me wrong, a lot of these popular posts do deserve the money. With the current model of voting power encouraging conservatism, the SteemTrain authors suck up the value upvotes of humans and bots alike. I'm happy that the whales have a new option to select the weight of the vote but as long as the curation system stays as is, I see no reason for them to place a low-weighted vote as it will be less profitable.
Capitalism behaves the same way. We place our money in the areas that will return the most profit. This, in turn, ends with the concentration of wealth in a few hands. Let's break this capitalistic practice and volunteer to support each other.
I would like to offer a solution, but with this particular matter, I am stumped. The fact is, computers will always outperform humans on being the first to upvote SteamTrains. As long as there is an easy way to gain lofty rewards with a few lines of code, there is little incentive not to do it. In most of my posts, I encourage and believe in automation as it frees up so much time in people's lives and allows them to be creative. My fear is that the owners of these bots will become removed from the community and stop seeking out other talents that are trying to break through. As the number of SteemTrains grows, it will become easier to select a diverse portfolio of authors to follow, allowing the powerful programmable members of our community to be a little more disconnected than before.
Source: TechInsider.io
The best solution I've come up with is for people to form positive relationships with the SteamTrains instead criticizing them. A little kindness goes a long way and I'm sure most of them would be happy to give you some support. I know if I ever become a SteemTrain, which I plan to do, I will be happy to mention all the articles I believe in on my own posts in efforts to spread the wealth and joy.
@owdy Just happen to publish this at the same time. It's a great article of how these bots work. (click here for post)