Thank you @jonnyla08 - you are absolutely right that Steem in general is quite confusing and complicated for new users and the voting bots are no exception. I'll try to address your specific questions here but let me know if you have any others:
after 25% curation (I assume that's maybe a fee or something)
The Steem blockchain works in such a way that 75% of the rewards generated are paid to the author of the post and 25% go to the people who upvote the post, known as curators. So the website takes into account that 25% will not go to the author when it calculates the ROI.
the details section stated I'd received a 37 cent upvote but when the vote actually arrived the value of my upvotes had only increase about 17 cents
This is a complicated topic due to the fact that SBD are currently trading at significantly more than 1 USD like they are intended to. On Steemit.com and other front-end sites the post payout shown ($0.17 in your case) assumes that 1 SBD = 1 USD, meaning it's basically incorrect. The bot tracker website shows the correct values in USD based on the current market prices of STEEM and SBD.
You can change the currency shown on the bot tracker website to POST REWARDS instead of USD to see what values will be shown on steemit.com. This type of confusion is a major reason why I support efforts to keep SBD pegged to the USD as intended despite that content publishers like myself are currently making more money from the increased prices.
That actually makes a lot of sense, I had not stopped to consider how the website or the bots calculated those ROI ratios and whether or not there could be a difference between the intended price of SBDs as opposed to the current market values.
It almost seems that given these changes that for someone like myself it would probably be better to set my view on the site to show the rewards that would be paid out or upvoted as to compare against that of what was spent for the bid for that bot to better determine profitability. I was just previously chalking this difference up to fees in the background somewhere as a price for the promotion from the bot's upvotes.
I'd also have to imagine that this same methodology is is used for any bot, even the paid upvote services like Minnowbooster and Smartsteem, correct? It all functions the same way, just a matter of preference in what service you use? Would you say that's an accurate understanding?
Sorry for all the questions. My mind just works like this in trying to dissect how everything works, force of habit given my profession. Thank you @yabapmatt for responding though and helping me out, sharing your knowledge and all.
i think curation refers to the amount distributed to people who upvoted the post divided by their dedicated shares to said post, 75% for the author, 25% divided between people who voted on it with the people who weighed the most getting the biggest share of that 25% (but i cant say 100% sure, steemit sure as hell doesnt come with a manual lol) you're one of my witness votes i see, i read some of your stuff before, glad to see not everyone is dedicated to squishing plankton into oblivion by eliminating the possibility to come into "the game" with virtually no money ... good karma there, bro , everyone a chance :p
using blacklists from people who talk the Trump-talk to strongarm the plebs into submission like markymark is something i think a bit less agreeable but i'm not the boss of you ofcourse