Write quality post
That has very little to do with it. Vote bots would not be necessary if the trending and/or the hot algorithms actually rewarded quality content. They have proven over time that no matter how many views and upvotes you receive, your only hope at getting noticed is to draw the attention of a whale and/or some dolphins. The vast majority of vote bot users lose, and I agree with your point that they would probably be better off powering up those SBD, but some of them make the investment just to be seen. Those who write quality posts shouldn't have to do that, but they do.
I agree with the idea of whales self voting, but I don't think the algorithm should give their upvote any more worth than minnows when it comes to trending pages.
Do you buy votes? I only ask because I will take a few minutes to go read your blog. Read mine. I do crayon contest, stick figure contest, horrible art contest and so on and I have enough SP earned that I now delegate 2 other users.
The thing is too many people come here and think that their blog on the same topics as 70% of the other users deserve more rewards than that of a user starting off.
If you started a job tomorrow would you expect to instantly make the same as the guy who has been there 6 months?
Greed, envy, lust and pride cause people to not do the work and buy votes in most cases.
I do well because I do my own thing and give a fuck about the rewards. I have a job, this is a social media platform. Just because you "can" make money here doesn't mean you deserve to before you do the work.
Seldom, but I have. In fact, I recently bought some votes for a post that made $70 according to steemit, but I still lost on that investment. I knew I would when I made it. That is not greed, envy or lust, but may have a little to do with pride. I feel I write quality posts, and I'm always looking to expand my readership. So while I'd rather not have to spend to get noticed, the site kind of requires it.
In that aspect, you can make the argument that whales that sell their upvotes or SP help to even out the playing field. They are not clogging up the trending pages with mediocre posts that push more deserving content further down to the back pages. Of course in a better system, the most deserving posts would rise based on the merit of their quality.
I do pretty well myself. I also have a job and don't depend on this for income. I'll check out your blog. I mostly post poetry, but into a few articles every now and then.
The solution there would have been to go to ten random blogs, read them, make 10 mindful comments and given ten new users a reason to check out your blog. Do that again the next day with ten new users. Rinse and repeat every day.
Next option would have been to take 1/4 of the SBD you spent on a vote bot and held a contest and found users that way.
It's work but this is a social platform for community building, every vote purchased make the vote sellers richer and keeps taking away from the reward pool that those ten users per day could give you repeatedly over and over again for their entire steemit career.
You help them power up, they help you power up and wow, the playing field starts to level out and minnows become dolphins.
I have done that since day 1. I continue to do that all of the time. It is effective in the long run, but nearly as quick as getting on the trending page. In order to make thoughtful comments, you have to invest time to read, understand, consider and relay your response. I believe this is the driving force of Steem, but the time constraints placed therein can be prohibitive. Buying votes allows me to tap into both methodologies by getting exposure to the trending page and by freeing up time to continue commenting and upvoting others.
I have seen a couple minnows grow to become dolphins. In both cases, they used vote bots quite a bit.
Word of advice, no one who has a vote over $1 every looks at hot or trending. They are known as the bought and circle jerk section. They are a trap for new users.
I don't think that's necessarily true, but it sort of makes my point. Good content doesn't rise to the top. Steemit gives the privilege of curation to the whales and they generally do a shitty job of it. If you fix that problem, you fix the bot problem.
The problem is a new user who comes here from YouTube for example with 500 SBD can repost YouTube Content here buy votes, get the SBD back from the bots +Steem power + Rep and it's all just for reposting content and buying votes. No work done, just money spent.
It would be nice if buying votes got you to trending but did not add Rep to the user buying it. As I study it it is much easier to just come here reposting and buying votes than creating and working at it.