[ Housekeeping ] Internet gurus, bidbots and fortunes lost

I haven't done one of these in a long time but I feel that this one needs to be written.

I came across an introduceyourself post the other day that was bidbot voted into Trending for ~750 dollars and was absolute nonsense. Here it is. we have come to expect this haven't we which in and of itself is sad. I flagged it as it is not worth the value. But, there is a bigger problem with it all.

Firstly, the payouts come from a common pool which means that if a post such as this has 700 dollars on it, there are many other posts that no longer have access to that 700. The pool is distributed based on stake and the bidbots have the most claim on the pool. However what this means is that when it comes to evaluation of the post and whether it deserves the value, it is the entire amount that gets considered, not just the profit part of the payout. It has to be this way because of the common pool. What this means (in my view) is that if someone buys votes past the actual value the community thinks it deserves, it should be flagged down to its rightful value. What do you think this post is worth? Here is the link again.

Okay. Now, here is the next problem.

The person has created two accounts (@onlinemoneygurug and @onlinemoneyguruu) based on another account, https://steemit.com/@moneyguruu who is some Youtuber with 300K+ followers. His guru. And, someone his guru has admited to knowing for 3 years.

Nice, he doxxed him too. All class. Anyway, this is the issue with the Youtubers who are "advertising" Steemit as a place to earn as the way they advertise brings in certain kinds of people who are either very desperate or, looking to get rich quick. The latter is the real problem because the desperate will probably realise they need to do the work and will learn and adjust so they can improve their life.

Next problem.

The average annual per-capita income in India for 2017 was ~600 US dollars. That is 600 dollars a year if you do not know what annual means. The average hourly salary is around 0.40 cents. You see why someone who is using their own bidbot'd posts to advertise Steemit is able to onboard so many when they show hundreds on their posts?

But, how many of those people who join Steem in this way are able to actually produce content that is worth 700 dollars a post? How many of them understand how the pool works, how flags work and how the community views this kind of behaviour? How many of them think that as long as they pay the money for the votes, the return is theirs?

I see that these online get-rich-quick gurus are toxic parts of the internet who prey on people who do not have the understanding or education to be able to see past the utter bullshit they purport as fact and truth. They are con artists who get wealthy off of others and when the shit hits the fan, use a disclaimer like 'I am not a professional' or 'this is advice only' to shirk the responsibility of their followers losing vast amounts of money.

Another problem.

I would be pretty damn pissed if I lost 100 dollars US or 500 as they case might be but, that can be a yearly salary in some of these countries. Do the gurus have no shame when they are advertising their plans to strike it big quick? Is it enough to say, "it is highly risky" to people who may not actually understand just how risky risky is?

Everyone has to take personal responsibility but when it comes to the complexity associated with such things as crypto markets, those people selling their advice have to take responsibility too, a disclaimer isn't good enough.

This is a post by one of the other accounts and another that @steemcleaners cleaned down to zero. They each had something like 600 dollars of bidbot votes on it. That is 2x a yearly average salary that just got wiped away.

I feel sorry for this poor bastard who has come in here ignorant of the community and the systems based on the words of a guru who claims to know how it all works. What is this poor dude gonna do now? In Finland the equivalent amount would be 70,000€ (~2 times average yearly salary) wiped away. That is my goddam mortgage on my apartment. Fuck.

What about the bidbots that voted very high and blindly on these posts without checking the content at all? Is it good enough to say it is up to the user when the users are brought in by youtube shills on what amounts to false information? Isn't there a duty of care somewhere? They call themselves businesses but they are not because, businesses come with liability and they have none. All they do is take cash for votes no matter the customer and say just like the online gurus, 'use at your own risk.'

They say it is for the community to police (not that the community has much drive to) yet, they do not take into account the content that is voted upon, they do not consider their customer at all. What kind of business doesn't consider the customer and only cares about profits? Banks and governments, usually working together. They do it legally of course because well, the legal framework is written by them so, the code allows it.

There is a lot of talk about protecting the most vulnerable in the world from the authoritarian dictators who take advantage of them yet, here we are at Steem encouraging the same behaviours. It is easy to say, don't invest anything you aren't willing to lose but the information required to understand the risks run much deeper than those words and not everyone fully comprehends them.

To the Youtube Steemit shills and your claims of onboarding... please, please, just stop as you do more harm than good to both the platform and like this guy who just lost a fortune in India, those you claim to help.

But, that is my opinion. If you think others should have a think about this too, maybe let them know because the shills aren't going to as it breaks their business model.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]