I don't know if it's a good analogy . There are many services on main stream social media offering autolike service, follower plans, etc. But much much more are organic growth. Steem is small compared to those, the SP bidbots control are too high, so it's not gonna work out.
We are just a few days after the fork, nice to see the use of bidbots reduces a lot already.
Bid bots do soak up a ton of SP. I must say I am happy with what I am seeing, this post was in no way a rant I am actually thrilled with how things are going so far. I was just getting asked a lot about bid bots. I don't think we will ever stop bid bots aka private SP hodlers who become ad agents in a way for advertisers on STeem. But we can hold them accountable as a community, as we have been with the new EIP.
You are right, in any ways much better than micro farming. I'm really happy to see even bidbot like smartsteem started curating.