If the community is as worried about bid bots as it seems, we should ban together to do something about it. That's what STEEM is all about. Yes, the bots are controlled by whales, but they can't take on all of us if we start hitting them at the heart. Every bot that posts or comments gets flagged. Eventually, you take that to directly to the people who are using the bots the most on the worst content.
It's all about teamwork, and if enough people come together to make a stand about it now, while Steemit is still in its infancy, maybe we can create a future where the trending page actually means something more than who paid the most to rake in rewards and put their content in front of everyone else's. It's truly beginning to look like the same ol' same, where content creators are going to have to buy in to a system that in the end is all about who has the most money and power...