I can't express good enough how and how much your post is music to my ears!
BTW - I wasn't aware either such a possibility exists. I mean, I knew some people rent their SP (as I am the one who leases it), but I didn't know a member could rent to bots his/her voting possibility and especially not for such a huge payment difference.
Being here over a year by now, not always fully active (especially not at the very beginning), but still whatever and whenever I'm engaged, I'm trying to participate, contribute and reward those I think to deserve that by staying behind my every single action with full integrity.
On this way, I hate that I am somewhat forced to use bots if I want to shout out something. In other words, I hate that I have to use bots if I want to give at least some posts (certainly not all of them) better visibility.
And OK, let's say that I manage to make peace with myself (somehow) by trying to accept that as the promotional price and the price of visibility.
But what is still bothering me a lot about that concept is fact that I come across a lot of articles being boosted the same way which articles are pure BS, not rarely just copied/pasted content from elsewhere, in other words, blatant plagiarism and copyright infringement what any of those bots out there is NOT checking by any means before casting their vote.
It turns this platform into a perfect playground for all sorts of scammers!
Although with my current amount of SP, I am few galaxies far away from you and accordingly even farther away from @snowflake, just reading about this possibility you were describing makes me feel like a complete fool.
Why?
About week ago I created a contest through which I would be able to teach newcomers a bit more about the Steemit. I decided to start the series with a simple question: "Are you a minnow?" as I saw many people don't understand what, in fact, determines to be a minnow or not, as well as I saw that even some older members don't know where in that scale they really are.
(As the post is still active for about next 24 hours, I still didn't give the explanation as I'm waiting for the contest to end, to give each participant equal possibility to win the reward.)
However, I allocated my own money to that contest. It's not some big amount but at the moment when I launched the contest, it was almost everything I had (for 100 correct answers).
I was even accused that I'm buying cheap votes with that contest what is hilarious as I knew from the beginning which audience (newcomers) I'm targeting and how "huge" their votes might be. But OK - I can live with that. The member didn't get and probably wouldn't get until the contest ends (if even then) where and why I was heading.
But now, reading about that someone would rather give its $10 value vote through some bot, very likely to some scammer (as I said, bots don't check that) who would have the money to pay for it, than to someone who really deserves it by creating truly quality content, it makes me feel even as a bigger fool and my small attempt at some (educational help) contribution entirely silly.
But you know what?! - Although I'm a bit pissed, I'm planning to stay a silly fool in this regard, if nothing else (same as you) for my integrity sake!
well, good, we need you.