Just let me say upfront I appreciate the effort here to try to bring all opinions to the table. Also, I'm just here to offer up an opinion, so no need to consider me for any STEEM please.
I don't know what using bidbots ultimately does to the reward pool or doesn't do. I don't know how much people spend, make or don't make. I don't know how much owners make or the delegators to them. I just know what people post, and it sounds like by and large the bid users get mixed results and the bot owners/delegators range from shady to kind of generous, while the biggest bots make the most money.
That said, here's why I don't use bidbots:
I don't want to spend hard earned SBD.
The only so called advantage I can see to using bidbots is to get to the top of the trending page, which on any given day takes $500 on up to do (and I don't have that kind of SBD to spend). Meanwhile, I'm also told the trending page is highly regarded as trash, which no one looks at. Why would I want to spend time and effort getting to it if no one (presumably) looks at it.
I don't want to skew the numbers and misrepresent my earnings. What ends up on the posts is a gross amount, but it doesn't factor in what I would pay to the bidbots to get there.
I've got better things to do than figure out each time which bidbots to use and when in order to increase my ROI.
If I use bidbots, I feel like I'm telling everyone else that my post is good, rather than letting curators decide that, even if visibility is lousy here.
Bidbots affect reputation ratings. I know reputation isn't that big of a deal anymore, but it's because people use bots and self-upvote so much that the reputation is out of whack, along with circle voting and delegations and everything else.
I don't think bidbots should have large SP and high reputation ratings, but both can happen. Bidbots have been used, in at least one recent case, to flag another bot account for commenting on posts that use bidbots with the amount spent.
Bots can take the optimum position to upvote for curation, blocking the humans. I root for the human curators because I am one.
Hunh. I thought there might be more reasons, but I guess I've ran out. Maybe if I think of more I'll add them. Those are my reasons for not using bidbots.
Thanks for providing a forum for this. :)
Thanks a lot for tge kind words @glenalbrethsen abd also for taking tge time to so ckearly and eloquently set out your views on the matter. Its definitely a divisive issue right now and one I think we need to resolve between us before we and steemit can reach our true potentials and youve made some excellent points that others should consider when coming to tgeir own conclusions.
Have an awesome day mate. :)