Hi @troyvandeventer,

I think one of the deciding factors on whether a automation or bots is good depends on the motive of the user and whether they consider the wider scope of impact. I fear many do not take this sort of thing into consideration when it comes to profit.

My reasoning for not desiring bid bots in the system is it has a tendency to put other users at a disadvantage especially considering when bid amounts exceed the weight of the bots upvote. Also, I consider the impact these services have on curation. If we have high powered bid bots that can easily bring a sub par post to trending, isn't this counter to the efforts humans are putting in towards manual curation of quality.

One ideal that I hope would be realized on Steem is that of users having an equal voice where it doesn't matter if you are a plankton or a whale that if you bring quality content that you will receive a fair reward. I think bid bots get in the way of this becoming a reality because the one with the deeper pockets can just buy upvotes irrespective of the quality of the post.

On the flip side, automated solutions can and have been used for good. They can be used to filter content by criteria, autofollow mutual follows, and facilitate comment contests among other things

Thanks again for the mention and the detailed write up!