In my previous post: HOW TO SUCCEED IN YOUR FIRST MONTH IN STEEMIT, I made a brief mention about voting bots and how important they are to your success on here on Steemit. I should have clarified in my previous post and broke down the two different types - Bid vs Non-bid. Some of you have probably started using the services without knowing and finding out that you are actually losing money. If so, you are probably using a Bid Bot.

^{Image courtesy of @yabapmatt}

Now before we go any further, I will just say it outright. Bid voting is a huge gamble with little ROI if not utilized right. If used right, it can be profitable and I will discuss this further later on. However, for now, let us discuss the negatives.

As they say in Vegas, the house always wins. In this case, the Bid Bot owners. It is not necessarily their fault. For the most part, Steemians are smart and well informed. But there are also too many dumb-@ss people here on Steemit who are willing to throw away money and I will demonstrate this on Exhibit A below. It is like their acting on a different set of logic than what a normal person would act in the real world.

If I gave you a $2 and you gave me back $1 in return, would that be reasonable? I would guess that you would be jumping up and down in ecstasy. While I, on the other hand, would be screaming MURDER! This is exactly what is happening in the Bid Bot Voting right now. Steemians are giving Bid Bots free money even after everything is shown that when you put money in, you get a lot less back.

Using @yabapmatt’s tool, http://www.steembottracker.com/bottracker.html, you can see firsthand what is going on. I do not know if the perpetrators are unaware or simply idiots using this tool to profit and it backfired.

To demonstrate, I am tracking one bid Bot called @pushup just randomly. You can use the tool above and track any other bot and you will probably find one going through the same thing.

Exhibit A:

You can see here the Bid Bot @pushup with 17:14 left before the bidding cycle ends with 9.89 MAX Profitable SBD left before it starts giving you back NEGATIVE Return on Investment. I'm displaying the currency in SBD since you are likely bidding in SBD (and it is easier to visualize).

Within this 17-minute timeframe, people are still bidding on this Bot and the Max Profitable Bid dropped to 0.00 with 1:10 left before bidding stops.

^{1:10 Left}

At this point, you would think that putting more money in is just plain dumb. @Pushup, like all the other bid bots, do not have a script or stop mechanism in place to automatically stop the bidding when the Profitability drops to zero.

Why would they? They are continually making money off idiots that keep feeding these bots money for negative returns!

Again, to be fair to the Bot owners, if idiots want to give them free money that is their problem. The problem I have with it is, they are not only screwing themselves, they are screwing other people who are expecting Positive ROI when they put their bids in EARLY. These last-minute voting people are ruining everything for them.

^{Look at the details}

Clicking on the details button reveals the truth. You can see here that currently, the ROI is at -2.37% after curation is applied. That means everyone who put in a bid on this bot will be losing 2.37% of their investment. That is all thanks to those people who waited until the last minute to start bidding.

But, wait it gets better!

^{Profit margin taking a nose dive}

Just a few seconds later more bids came in and the ball just keeps on rollin’ to the other side of oblivion. Who in their right mind would continue bidding after knowing they are getting 3.77% less than what they are putting in? They must have Steem to burn.

Ok, so maybe -3.77% is not too bad? Maybe you get a shot at the Trending Page with the 6.42 SBD vote? I don't think so!

To those who are bidding the last minute, you suck and you should be ashamed of ruining it for other people. Because of you, everyone is losing (except the bot owners).

^{Final round. Putting the nail in the coffin.}

In some cases, you get this!

How would you like to put in 100 SBD and get back only 70.65 SBD?

The path to trending isn't a cheap one :)

I've been observing that this has been happening a lot and I don’t know if people are using @yabapmatt’s tool or blindly bidding hoping to cash in on the last minute. I am guessing it is a little of both.

Final Thoughts

My advice, if you want to use bid bots, please educate yourself and do research. Use the SteemBot Tracker Tool properly and especially keep an eye out first on the Max Profitable Bid column. If it is down to ZERO that means you are going to start losing money for the bids you put in. Do not be the Douche that votes the last minute and ruin it for everyone.

If you can see that the ROI is starting to return less and less, go find another bid bot. They all cycle back and maybe it is better if you wait for the next cycle. If you do not know what you are doing, do not touch or even look at bid bots!

One solution is that the Bot owners program their bots to stop receiving bids after the ROI goes to ZERO. MinnowBOOSTER has something like this in place so it is not impossible to implement.

I have personally used bid bots with some success by watching the patterns carefully. I always check if the bid bot has been giving out negative ROIs the last few rounds and make a decision if I make a bid on the bot. Lately, there has been many of these last-minute bidders that are killing the ROI and themselves. So I can't recommend you use Bid Bots at this time unless you absolutely know what you're doing and are willing to flush money down the toilet.

Have you used Bid Bots? Are you getting Negative ROI?

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness." - Mark Twain

^{All photos are taken and articles are written by Adonis Villanueva of Always Wanderlust unless otherwise stated.}

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Bid Bots Demystified and Reasons Why You Probably Shouldn’t Be Using Them