I'm going to start using Steem properly and so should you.

First step is to kill the middleman.

The Greed Within

Steem is mine and it is yours too.

Having liquid STEEM and putting it in motion on markets can make you rich if you are lucky or can make you poor if you are not.

But what if you believe in a long term Steem success?
HODL?
HODL STEEM like a Pro and Power Up!

Powered up?
Great.

Welcome to the suckers club!

Now what?
If you are a great writer you could create great posts and upvote yourself ten times a day.
If you are not a great writer but you are a shameless scumbag you could pretend that you are master of technical analysis and still upvote yourself ten times a day.
Neither of that?
Sorry to hear.

So maybe curation?
Not exactly a passive income you have always dreamed about.
So maybe automation?
You know few great authors that you want to vote for, rest you can sell to the highest bidder.
There are plenty of services that will let you do that.
Fuck yes!

Yes?

Fuck.

Fuck no!

Soon you end up using them...

Paid voting services

You need them to effectively use of your own Steem Power.
Idle Steem Power is a waste.
You don't want your precious Steem Power to be wasted.

So you use them.

You sell your Steem Power, your votes, your dignity.
You close your eyes when shitposts are upvoted because you have a good reason for that: you earn.
You earn to buy Steem Power and votes.
You need them to make your posts stand out of the pile of shitposts.
Out of the pile of shitposts, very same shitposts you just helped go trending.

Voting services is not everything.
Your friends could help you
... could they?
They are voting for your posts.
They honestly like your content.
But their power is low.
No wonders, it's long time sold out.

And that's not the worst.
You all just made some random pimp the middleman rich.

Solution

LOL. Are you kidding?
I don't have one.
But one thing Steem has taught me:
I don't need a middleman.

The idea should please both:

• those who love paid voting services
• those who hate paid voting services

Let the greed guide you

Those who sell votes will still sell votes but earn a little bit more.
Those who buy votes will still buy votes but earn a little bit more.

Stage one (now)

I want a self hosted voting automation to support my favorite authors.
I want a self hosted bid bot to sell my remaining voting power without a middleman.

Stage two

I want to be able to offer those services to others.

I don't want a middleman for myself but I want to be a middleman for others?
Yes.
With one important difference: I will be half as greedy as most.
Or maybe less.

Stage three

I want to aim for non-profit.
Just to cover upkeep costs.
At proper scale costs will be negligible.
If you want to compete as a middleman, you have to make no profit or you will lose.

On my way to make it happen

I can't do that on my own, I will gladly use your help.
I will post about the progress.

End credits

I want to thank:
@acidyo
@anmitsu
@apsu
@gandalf
@geekpowered
@suesa
and other kind souls visiting #general channel on Steem.Chat
Without you guys, I wouldn't care.

And myself.
I want to thank myself too.
Because I care about myself most and so should you.
Kill the middleman.