I have always agreed with your feelings about autovoting. I get it. Folks are busy, and support authors with those votes - or knowing the authors will trend, seek curation rewards with their bots.
The latter is a problem, and it's caused by curation rewards. Substituting financial incentives for the motivations that have always prompted folks to support speech has the effect of eliminating every other value for folks seeking financial value. Curation rewards destroy curation.
Another factor I consider just as important is that society is a purely human endeavor, and the infiltration of bots degrades humanity. It is easy to discount today because technology limits the impact of AI and our tools on our social interactions, but the rapid, even exponentially rapid, advance of technology may soon cause AI to subsume mere humans and our interactions that create society.
Please give that thought. Hive is a society. It isn't an ETF, or dividend bearing stock, in terms of speech. Financialization of curation has long been the blight that degrades trending, and curation rewards are the reason curation has been financialized. It's contrary to every stated purpose of free speech, society, and reduces the value of Hive to the community.
Decentralization of rewards on social media platforms is central to the potential of social media to benefit content creators for the benefits their content provides society. Curation rewards centralize stake on Hive, degrade curation, and reduce the benefits content creators deliver to society AND the value of the Hive platform to it's community.
Eliminating curation rewards and establishing the interest bearing savings accounts @edicted has proposed would resolve the concerns I have oft expressed about profiteering, better trending as a reflection of social interests, and benefit substantial stakeholders by providing more predictable returns on their stake via a mechanism more consistent with the investment industry.
Thanks for your robust and significant dedication to and hard work supporting Hive from your first day here.