@ameliabartlett, this was a really useful article, and confirms my suspicions that ultimately many of the pay for upvote services just don't equate to what was spent.
One note, you can contact @bumper for a refund. They usually automatically refund an upvote payment, but occasionally it doesn't happen due to system updates, or other maintenance issues. Even these are rare, but they recently experienced a period of down time where refunds on expired posts were not refunded. Just contact them, and you'll get a refund right away.
Are the following actions considered using an upvote bot?:
resteemit
originalworks
steem-untalented
contentvoter
I found your post on PYPT this morning. I'm following you now!
Cheers!
@mitneb, in re-reading your comment, I took a look at each of these four. The only 'bot' on the list is OriginalWorks, and they do not accept payment for their votes (IE, not part of the bidding bot/Steemit finance problem). The other three are manual curators (people). Each one is reliant upon their own voting power, and 3/4 of reliant on their own judgment. This type of curation and, in the @originalworks case, bot-voting, is great because it isn't based on financial contribution of the person who wants a vote. (personal opinion!)
Cheers!@ameliabartlett, thanks for looking into these, and replying.