The paid upvote bots are so frustrating. I can see that they are a precursor to a form of advertising here on Steemit. So I understand why they have a purpose in the evolution of the ecosystem. It's a different form of the 'promotion' tag, which never was very effective. But I've never used them and it's frustrating to see others use them so much, especially if they are just cashing out, rather than building steem power. I would rather grow organically, although that seems tougher than ever, looking at the view numbers. It does seem like the number of followers and the number of views are unrelated! So it's hard to know what 'growth' really is.