I think there are a mix of bots. I've used a few myself and will continue to but there are also ones that seem to be exploiting the system, in some cases just built to move Steem to particular accounts...it seems. But I suppose if people are investing their money into the system to do that, in some capacity money is being invested into the system.

At any rate, I like this line of thinking (both the article and comment) and I think in general what you get out of Steemit is relative to what you invest into it.