You made some interesting points, Brandon. And I agree with many of them. But if one can pay to be considered quality content ... regardless of the actual thought and effort put into the content ... that makes us a lot like facebook and youtube. They are a pay for play systems. The problem is ... but it is less of problem, I suppose ... is that many soon realize that the trending page is paid-for placement and pay little attention to it. I found you because I had a question about the platform and I searched the question; you gave the most cogent answer and so I followed you. I did not find you on the trending page.
In the end upvotes received from individuals who did not even visit the blog, or in some cases have never visited the blog, is misleading and says nothing about the quality of the post. To be clear there are a lot of people who have fabulous blogs and also use bots to gain upvotes but the bid bots don't read the post and are incapable of opinion and give no indication of quality, only the size of the wallet of the person who paid for the upvote.
My thought ... leave the bid bots, but think of them more as a stock market kind of thing. Maybe even employ more editorial bit bots, something akin to @curie to seek out really good content. But lets be democratic about the trending page and not mercantile ... a vote is a vote, regardless of the wealth of the voter. And the voter needs to have truly visited the post to count as a vote ... it can still count as an investment.
In the end it about what one values ... money or people and ideas. I understand that it is not black and white and attention needs to be given to both sides of the continuum. People need money. But maybe we can find a healthier balance for the longterm health of the platform. With a healthy platform, we all gain monetarily, especially the whales. We need to attract more people to the platform and right now the state for newbies is unbelievably dismal, unless they pay for bid-bots. Most people aren't going to bother with that. Newbies are deserting left and right or just flopping around the place with little positive effect on the system. This is a wasted resource.
At this point, we swing in the wind with the price of bitcoin. If we could get out from under its shadow, we would be a lot less vulnerable to crypto fluctuations. If newbies had a better time at the beginning, they might be more likely to invest in the platform. I had some good people helping me out in the beginning and I did. When the platform thrives, we all do ... like I said, especially the whales.
Wishing you continued success on here and a great day:)