We have big plans for limiting abuse of the bot and are currently in contact with multiple big curation projects to learn from their experience.
While we don't have all solutions at once we are trying to improve our service gradually and are thankful for your feedback! We are already doing a lot more than other bots for limiting abuse and spam to the system. We watch for cheetah flags and we have a blacklist where spammers can be put on so we refuse service to them. While that does not prevent abuse, it certainly helps it from growing overboard and we hope other bots employ similar measures.
If you have any ideas on how we can improve, I would love to hear them. If there are lists of known abusers you can share, we can add them. If there are signs someone is spamming that don't lock out genuine users, we can detect them. If we are actually able to do it, chances are high we will. We are working with steemcleaners and willl work with other groups who try to keep steem clean of spam.
To the general question if voting bots are good or not for steem, that is not for me to decide. Currently there is a huge discovery problem with steem and bots provide a means to promote your post. I am always happy to discuss improvements of the steem ecosystem and try to fuel the discussion on how we can improve botting and how we can prevent bad bots. Please mention me in posts about that topic should you write one :)
I think you should look @steemcleaners posts if you don't already. Those highlight posts not to support and it will help if no bots do. I wrote a post about that a while ago. Steemcleaner tells you guys what is "bad" but then I went and looked and found a lot of those posts with bot support only! I think if you guys get off those it would be a good step - not just you but all the bots.
At least this is a way to circulate some of the revenue. I will buy votes as I can until my posts are over $10 - then I just let the post payout. At least with your votes, I don't feel like such a loser. I put them on during Day 6 when I do, so they aren't on my feed too long.It helps me and my voters and puts some cash into sp easily. I see no downside and I'm glad you guys are doing this. Get more people to invest because many of them are wasting their voting power as it is.