I find it interesting the there was no noise about bots when it was just whales and farms. As soon as bots and helpers are put into the hands of the 'regular' players, people are up in arms about it. Whales leading the masses to what is best for them...and they follow. They follow because you guys tell them it will save the game, they can start winning, they can earn more...but really the only people who will truly benefit from these changes are the ones who really don't need it.
It seems similar to the gun debate...in that if you make guns illegal then only criminals will have guns...lots of them. the only people who will follow the new terms are those who follow the rules...OR are using the XBOT service as Sylar has decided earlier that he would respect the terms (when he disabled his service in Modern)...so the 'regular' players will now lose access...but that won't stop it. it'll be back to the status quo where only a certain class of player will have access to these tools (whales)...which is, interestingly, exactly where we were at before bots came to the masses and whales started getting beat up in diamond/champion.
Tinfoil hat aside...If this proposal could guarantee any kind of equal enforcement, then i'd vote for it just to move on...so i have a counter proposal for you...instead of changing the terms of service, simply disable the 'ongoing_match' API endpoint. this will make sure that there will be NO access to banned tools during a battle. Or they could set it up to where it would only return Wild Ranked battles instead of every match.
Personally, i don't really think bots are the root of all the problems in the game or ecosystem. I would offer that 15 million Chaos Legion packs hurt this game as much, if not more than individual accounts botting...but that's just me.
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Disabling the API, encoding the id to the battle ... will make it harder, but there'll be ways around it still: take your phone, scan the monitor for ruleset and go... it happens in games with implemented anticheat, with no monetary incentive ... people pay money to cheat in bronze level CS, CoD, you name it. Ofcourse it'll happen if actual earnings are on the line... the question is do you go the chess. com way and ban people for too high accuracy agreement with the gold standard bot?
I think you are viewing the reasons why people care about this through jaded lenses. I know for instance that I care solely about the growth of the game. That's how my interests are aligned. So if it grows the game, then I am for it. If not, then I'm against it.
I have been against bots since they first showed up in the J6969 days and fought loudly to the destruction they were causing. I have been vocal about it, as have many others. But we were told bots couldn't be stopped for all these years. Now that enough people have left the game, others see we were right.
Whether you agree or not, its my observation that bots and automated play have driven our attraction and retention rates to massive new lows. If nothing is done then the game will die at some point.
You might disagree and that's fine. Everyone can see things through their own eyes.