Well said, @jongolson. Creating your best content is all you can really do and I know that you do that very well. Glad we got connected early on!
One of the complaints we've seen is that bots are "mindless" and are upvoting crap posts. Of course this is subjective... but there really are spammers, plagiarizers, and down-right con artists using our promotion services. Luckily there are people like @themarkymark who have spent countless (and thankless) hours combatting this and creating the ultimate Steemit blacklist.
And with the latest @postpromoter code created by @yabapmatt I believe @buildawhale's blacklist (run by @themarkymark) is added in by default. I know that I've personally added his blacklist to my service and many others have done the same. And this goes back to what Matt said about those running these services being trustworthy. We've all got to do our part to be responsible and ultimately the community will judge for themselves.
You guys all have a tough job and thankless one too. And I get the arguments from all sides, there is a ton of garbage out there...But like you said man, in your comments above...Content promotion is key for all media sites. You have to take the good with the bad. That's social media LOL The more money coming into STEEM though, I think is great.