Shouldn't we just eliminate self upvoting? And even bots? Steem would be about actual curating if we werent buying bots votes or paying bribes for upvotes .. and just forbid upvoting yourself, that would have a big impact .. its masturbatory. If you have enough followers and good content, you shouldn't need to upvote yourself anyway.
IMO, self upvoting and bots are just ways to gain visibility like any other advertising. There's nothing inherently bad about them. Without them, you could just create a dozen smurf accounts to do the same thing.