If only half the people on here think like you do, the we'd have had such a perfect community, unfortunately thats not the situation.
In the end I may still have to resort to the means other people use to earn more,
I dont think upvote bots are inherently bad in themselves. They are meant to promote quality works like yours. It only gets bad when shitty posts are upvoted with these bots. So i think you could use them to promote your posts that way, you'd see more rewards coming in.
I will take that under consideration. My living expenses are higher than they have ever been before, so I may begin utilizing bots just to ensure I can make rent, utilities and so on.
That would be great, bot in themselves do not guarantee profit, but they'll give you more visibility, which is perfect.