I've been using a few of the bots for a while, mainly to get some visibility on my posts. It seems like posts with 0 upvotes get a lot less interaction than when there's already some upvotes, so it felt like I was boosting my visibility by getting some automated upvotes. I have not tested this theory, so maybe it doesn't even work as I thought.

On my latest post I got plenty of upvotes organically, so I let it run its course for a day. When I noticed the activity had dwindled, I succumbed and used only minnowbooster on it. That gave me a few extra cents (hardly noticeable on the $60 it already has) and seemingly no other activity than the upvote trail from the bot itself. Next time I won't be using the bots at all.

I agree, for the starting minnow it makes sense to use the bots, and that's a design flaw in the Steemit system. The supply of bots is there purely because there is a demand. I wonder how Steemit could be improved so that upvote bots aren't needed anymore.

In any case, even though I have used them, I'm starting to realize that they actually devaluate what Steemit is about. Automated curation is irrelevant curation. Bots make a post look weaker, not stronger. Still, before saying something rash as "ban all bots" I think we should all think really hard about how to solve the problem that is now solved by bots: the problem that minnows have a really hard time getting noticed.