Bid-bots are controlling an increasing amount of voting power for the reasons I just stated. An increasing amount of voting power is use to upvote themselves for the same obvious basic game theory reason.
How would you feel if you invested 200,000$ and were seeing the guy next to you invest the same thing but only vote themselves or delegate to a bid-bots making many times more than you are?
Depends on why I invested. I'm not primarily invested in steem for the money so I don't compare myself monetarily to others on the platform.
I see your point though and I think that is probably steem's biggest weakness is that everyone is focusing exclusively on the money. I think a better platform will be one where the people using it are less worried about roi and more worried about enjoying the content.
If everyone is just trying to make money then steem becomes more like a ponzi scheme, the initial investors only get money if more people invest. There needs to be an equilibrium, everyone can't expect monetary returns