Steemit is still a great place to self publish and earn without advertisements. It's ahead of it's time. Even though a few greedy types are making it harder for more to join in on the fun, that doesn't make it impossible to find success here. Many still do. It's not the end of the world. People need to be encouraged to curate responsibly, and many do. Even today though I saw another post where someone was bragging up the benefits of automation, which means we lost another set of eyes...and unfortunately a few read it, jumped on the bandwagon, now we have less.
Strange to me though. They could just as easily earn curation rewards by voting for anyone. In some cases they'd earn more because they'd be sharing their piece of the pie with fewer people. Finding the diamonds in the rough seems to be like too much work for some though. Clicking a button is too much work. I usually earn more on curation by voting manually than most of these with similar SP who use bots, yet they hear easy money and throw logic out the window. That's life I guess.
I don't think it can be policed. We do have downvotes in the form of flags that can negate rewards gained through abuse. They work. Unfortunately, many who don't vote responsibly will have to see the value of their rewards plummet before they will believe value can actually do that. People will be people. There's always some who can only look out for number one.
Its good to hear you say this, I was told to go with a bot , but then what is the point in posting and being here if I can't interact? To me, this platform is amazing and I just need to be "me" and be patient. Thanks so much!