What kind of incentive exists to do that? When the only effort is to build the bot, tweak it occasionally, then sit back and watch the SBD roll in. I can't think of anything. The only thing that takes less effort is to delegate SP to someone (no bot needed), sit back, watch the SBD roll in.
Yup. It's a tough life!
Although in future, they may need to up the meme output a little :)
One thing I wonder about. If all this community filtering that you bring up actually does happen, and the bots are regulated to the darkest corners of Steemit, wouldn't it also make it easier to identify them.
Yes.
if, as you say, someone creates a creator bot so that the bid bots (including the creator's own) start bidding on it, wouldn't they, eventually eat each other?
I think there will be increasing competition and a reduction in bots but when the delegations fall, most of the owners will have enough SP to self-vote like a goodun'.
It's something to speculate on for now, we shall see.