During my years on the Steem blockchain, a consistently controversial topic has been the use of voting bots. Without wading too far into the controversy, I'll say that I'm generally in favor of automation, but it's important that it's done well. I'll also say that there are pros and cons for everything, so what I look for is not perfection - but continuous improvement.
For me, it's interesting to look back on how things have changed, and to wonder about what might come next. Informally, I think of the voting bots that have existed here in terms of 4 generations.
As far as I can tell, we've been stuck at Gen-4 for three or four years now. So, my problem with the voting bots isn't that they exist. I suspect that they're unavoidable. My concern is that they seem to have stopped innovating. Their investors should demand more.
This morning, I thought I'd try to take an objective look at some pros and cons of the Gen-4 voting bots and imagine what a Gen-5 voting bot might look like.
To me, it seems clear that the argument of whether these bots should exist is pointless. They do exist, and I can't imagine a scenario where they disappear in the near future, so instead of wishing them away, how do we make sure that everyone's interests are aligned? First, we take a clear-eyed look at the advantages and disadvantages, so that's what I'll try to do here (briefly, I am in a hurry today, unfortunately).
These lists are far from exhaustive, but since I'm in a hurry, I need to move on. Hopefully, I hit the highlights. So now, let's talk about the potential for a Gen-5 voting bot.
Off the top of my head, here are some of the characteristics that we'd like to see:
Impossible, right? I don't think so. I think that a bot-owner would just need to stitch together some already existing technologies in order to accomplish this. The things that are needed follow:
So, let's imagine a 2-dimensional voting bot that's supporting a stable of authors and also a pool of investors. The authors get paid in proportion to 2 factors: (i) the rewards on their posts; and (ii) the views on their posts. Simplistically, the stable of authors could just be anyone who posts through the bot-owner's web site. (Of course, authors can also be investors, and vice versa, but they don't have to be.)
Similarly, investors also get rewarded in proportion to two factors: (i) the rewards on all posts; and (ii) delegation size.
Now, the bot operator keeps a running tally of how much is owed vs. how much is collected, and they distribute it through the use of their own web site.
The (shall we say) "sponsored" authors post through the bot operator's web site (something like upvu.org). In this way, the bot operator can track their views and set their beneficiary percentages in order to distribute rewards according to the rules above. The reward distribution can be done using something like PPS or PPLNS.
There's some complex math to be done here, but that's what computers are good at, so I don't see it as overly challenging.
If the bot-owner doesn't want to set up their own web site, perhaps they could arrange to get the view count information from Steemit, but they'd need to rely on their authors to set the right beneficiary settings, which is an easy step to forget about.
If they do set-up their own web site, they could also harness the Visibility as a Service concept that I've discussed in the past, which might provide a secondary mechanism to protect and increase the value of the investor's stake.
Gen-1 harnessed automation.
Gen-2 harnessed curation rewards.
Gen-3 harnessed blockchain transfers
Gen-4 harnessed delegations, transfers, and curation rewards
For me, the key insight that Gen-5 voting bots need to harness is this. "author" rewards don't need to go to the author of a particular post. Through the use of beneficiary rewards and reward-sharing algorithms, beneficiary rewards can be redirected to investors or even to other supported authors, and rewards can be distributed in proportion to a healthier mix of factors.
By harnessing beneficiary rewards and audience metrics, I believe that Gen-5 voting bots could profit more and better align themselves with the interests of authors, investors, and audiences.
What do you think?
Update: See also, I Wonder If Bid Bots Can Be Made Less Harmful?, which was posted today by @o1eh.
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