Curious. I have not grasped the idea of bots nor curation trails if at all. I personally think it's detrimental - automatizing the way people consume content and get feedback from content from "non-human" influence.. it is about as empty as making a mindless robot press its own keys to make itself exist.

You are right, it's all about the people, the community, and later on in time, the people who consume. Right now the platform is an echo chamber of participants, even trolls and few passive lurkers. We want more passive lurkers who upvote and curate - and also more curators that aren't bots. It has to be human. If the echo chamber through bots and organized support groups keeps going, it will grow overall "interactivity" and "exposure" and "support" for new channels - make others viral and strong, distribute value in a more equal way... but it will be an echo chamber and the noise will die out, and drive the steem value down and ultimately maybe drive the whole thing to a stop.

You are right, maybe it is a deeper concept - that some of the grassroots human interaction without aids is what it's about and that might be good for some and hard for others - and with that the curation should be a personal thing. I just hope the system of "personalized" curation trails DOES happen but on a personal way - less about a group. It is hard to like what a group likes to the full - and if it does.. then that is damaging and blind - it just needs to be more personal and the curation trails need to be based on personal likes, their search history for tags, personal tags and previous liked content - not other peoples opinions or what bots select and upvote automatically.

One mans trash is another's treasure, and the curation system needs to work around that. That is really the issue, and bots and curation trails are not fixing that issue - they cannot. Recommended content and auto promotion systems need to be personalized and on an individual viewers/curators tastes - or limited - to then give more incentive to the lurker based on their own personal tastes... the lurkers who enjoy their kind of content of other personal tastes for their favorite creators can do what a guild or bot cannot - become fans and promote the niche creators... that is what will keep the system ultimately alive - and an upvote bot and upvote communities may nooootbe the solution to that.