@ats-david I love that you wrote this, and it brought back many conversations we had when users, including myself were questioning steemvoter and ozcharts.. It is the same conversation. Bots voting up the same users every day, sometimes multiple times a day.
The end result is SteemIt isn't lotteryish at all. We can all guess who will trend tomorrow. The community grows weary, and we rinse and repeat. I guess it doesn't matter what "side or group" you are in. It just feels scamy.