Steem starting already with a lie. Its said you will get rewarded for good content. And now bring me different people, all of them will have a different opinion about what good content means.
Why not rewarded for the effort you spend? This would motivate everyone to try his best. I see so many people here, it's visible that they try their best and get nothing.
At first, I have been against bots so hard, because I saw it as not right to push myself into trending or even hot. Then I saw that people always said you have to use bots, I should see it as a paid promotion, then I get more attention. But nope.
I did learn now, a new user of steem/steemit, who can spend maybe 0.1-20SBD for bit bots will gain nothing. The bid bot will earn a lot. As long I'm not willing to use maybe 50 SBD and more, I don't believe bit bots could really promote someone. So how a new user can find out what he should do better if there never be an honest response to his work? Just because someone won't or can't spend 100 SBD on bid bots?
So, the only reason why I still then use sometimes the bots is I can push my reputation and get a bit steem after paid out. But maybe even the reputation could be pretty useless and I better buy steem with SBD on the market. I'm only 3 months here now, I still have much to learn.