It is different.
So your primary complaint with voting circle are:
- More difficult to participate in
- More difficult to see
To the first point, of course its more difficult to participate in that is why its a voting circle. But atleast with voting circles it doesn't cost you anythng to participate in, while with voting bots ROI is not stable and can be negative even. (I don't know if there is a profitability in this). The second point is that in voting circles there is more chance of it going to relative good posts, as opposed to now most of the votes go to shit posts that fill up trending. I joined before voting bots became big, and although I remember I was frustrated seeing the same people in trending over and over again, I still think there were some good posts in between. Now I barely look in trending.
Point 2. "More difficult to see" You imply here that because everything is open with voting bots it is better because? We can stop the votes more? I see some vote bot owners putting up whitelists, but how efficient are they really and how will they be able to manage the list of millions of people join the platform.
I agree with you that either are bad. But in my opinion when we don't have voting bots, atleast the big stake holders will need to put extra effort in voting and choosing where there votes go. Like to quality content creator Jerry for example.