It has long been the case on Steem that there is a divide between those who don't see a problem with bid bots and those who think they will be the downfall of Steem. I have sat on both sides of the fence with this argument, as there can be strong arguments either way - bots attract investors and thus more money to Steem, but they are also leading to overvalued content and a broken 'Trending' section.

I think that by using bots often, we are becoming short sighted and focussed on payouts of each post rather than growing our accounts for the long run. There are many great initiatives to help Steemians 'invest' and grow their account. I thought I would share a few today.

Steem Basic Income

The reason I pick this one first is because it is an initiave I love and fully support. To understand the initiative of @steembasicincome it is best to quote from their blog:

Steem Basic Income is a social experiment to bring a basic income to as many Steemians as possible. Members join by sponsoring others into the program. Steem Basic Income is delivered through providing regular upvotes to member content.

I usually sponsor people by offering SBI shares when I run competitions - it is a great way to support and help other Steemians. The more SBI shares you have the bigger upvote you sill recieve!

What I really like about SBI is that there are now loads of competitions running offering shares, and so you can get started with upvotes for life, often without even investing anything! A great way to help new Steemians get started!

Make sure to check out their blog @steembasicincome for regular updated about the various compeitions giving away SBI shares.

Qurator

Qurator is an initiative I started following just before summer and I intend to join soon. Steemians can join @qurator for 4 Steem (conditions apply, see this blog for details).

Memebers will then recieve upvotes from the Qurator upvote bot - with higher upvotes reserved for higher 'tier' member who have delegated Steem Power to Qurator. As an extra way to give recognition to its members, Qurator also resteems two member blogs per day.

Qurator is another great way to invest in growing your account for the long term, and one that I hope to become involved in very soon!

Steem-UA

Through my post the other day about why good Steemians leave the platform an initiative called @steem-ua came to my attention in the comments (thanks @Eturnerx).

This is a delegation based system, with delegations starting from a very affordable 25SP - with higher delegations meaning more upvotes from Steem-UA per week.

I am still very new to researching this one, but the idea is that they have created an algorithm for a new kind of reputation score called the User Authority. What I love about this system is that the higher your UA score the higher your potential upvote will be - thus encouraging users to grow, engage and share good content, as it is in their best interest.

Although I wont share the ins and outs of how to increase your UA score (I dont fully understand it yet myself!), I suggest checking out this blog by @runicar which gives a simplified and easy to understand overview.

A digression about self upvoting

While we are talking about investing in the future rather than the present, it is worthy to discuss self upvoting. I have generally been one who upvotes my own content (but never my own comments!). Untill recently it isn't something I thought about (as my upvote is so small, and I generally only post once a day). However, and argument could be made that we could use our self upvotes to help and support others and that in the long run this will lead to a bigger community and more support! I would love to hear everyones thoughts about self upvoting! Is it something you are for or against and why?

Conclusion

These are just a few of the inititives that have come to my attention, and I know for a fact that there are plenty more on Steem (suggestions always welcome in the comments!). Using your hard earned Steem to purchase upvotes might bring to hihger payouts in the present, but it could be at the sacrificie of building your account for the long term.