God damn, this post is long overdue! It's mostly the curators who complain about the voting bots because the curators think we are either stupid or desperate for their votes. Calling yourself a curator doesn't magically make you smarter or your taste in good content better. And I think it's unbecoming of an artist to kiss their asses hoping for an upvote, which makes bots the better option if you have something that you want to see on the trending page.
I like Steemit, but EOS and whatever social network platform is created by @dantheman will be the future. I look at Steemit now as more or less a trial run for whatever social network @dantheman creates on EOS.
When Ned (51% total stakeholder) downvoted Dan's EOS post a couple weeks ago the writing was on the wall. That's bad business, and not the kind of move you want to see from the "marketing guy" (Dan is the brains behind Steemit).
To me it's obvious that SMTs are desperate hail mary to solve Steemit's short comings and there are just too many better options out there if you want to launch an ICO. I know Gab.ai for example is going to choose EOS or Ethereum to launch their coin.
Right now what makes Steemit great is the creative community. I keep coming back because I like interacting and supporting artists like yourself, but I'm not sold on it as long term solution for the reasons you stated.
IMO it will be the "MySpace" and EOS will be the "Facebook" of this genre of social media. But I do think learning the ins-and-outs of Steemit will be beneficial to the EOS site bc a lot if will probably translate.
That's the thing too, I am more into the fellow members than the platform itself. I think competition will be healthy and still see huge potential in steemit but that depends on what people will work towards etc.