They already can and do refuse or pull upvotes for abusive or scammy content and blacklist users that do that. But they can't really do that just because its not good enough. where would the line be drawn?
I think these bots actually work against that. Meaningful, original content that adds value does have a fighting chance here and it used to have a lot more of a chance, when whales where looking for ways (like trails and guilds) to upvote good content instead of just selling their upvote.
Yeah I do agree with that and it'll be a tough line to draw...I'm conflicted about it too because on one side, it can help people out who are coming onto the platform who have a sincere desire to add value...on the other side, some spam punks can just spam a gif and rape the pool.
I like the idea of whales delegating their upvote to others who are actively searching for good content. Like the way @Ned delegated steempower to @dtube - I think that was a great move. Now DTube is actually growing and people are challenged to put better content and have better video quality in their videos...I hope it doesn't destroy steem and the optimistic side of me thinks that it'll somehow work out, especially since we're having conversations about it. The whales are listening. At least the ones that care about the platform and their investment.
Either way, super thought provoking post. Thanks for sharing.