With the introduction of free downvotes, several vigilante groups have said they are going after anyone who self-votes or uses bid-bots. With the possibility of all rewards being removed thusly from a post, it becomes more of a gamble than it ever was. Even if I were to author the most epic post the blockchain has ever seen, I can't imagine the risk in promoting it with a bid-bot.
In this new environment, I am not sure if it is even safe to trade tokens (such as PALcoin) for an upvote. Perhaps all these community-tokens were created, needlessly? I suppose time will tell.