Very interesting points raised and I agree with you. It seems the demonitization that Diamandis talks about applies to all of this. Ironic since we are discussing the currencies here.
I believe greed will be a think of the past. Creativity and innovation will rule. As we get more open source and decentralized platforms, the silo effect will be going. So will the proprietary nature of things. Those who try to operate in that manner will find a group of people who set out to decentralize it and create an open source version. Over time, people will embrace that.
I do like your thoughts on the bots, I never framed them as middle men but you are right, essentially they are.
So would the ultimate bid bot have no bids? Isnt the bottom zero or near zero?
I use the words bid-bots and vote selling interchangeably at my own peril. There is no bidding involved.
Everyone has their own bot. You want to sell a 10 cent vote for 0.08 SBD. You post this information on the blockchain. Other people with the same bot can scan the blockchain and see your offer. Someone bites and replies that they want to purchase that 10 cent vote for 0.08 SBD. The vote seller confirms the transaction. The vote buyer sends 0.08 SBD. The vote seller upvotes the link given for 10 cents.
Smart contracts aren't even required because if the vote seller doesn't pay up everyone will know. The botnet will ban this account until they make it right.
A very nice side effect of this system of sidestepping smart contracts is that it provides a network of trust, reputation, and history of positive interaction on the blockchain. These positive interactions could be used to form a new reputation system that is far superior to the one that Steem is using right now.
Adding an optional bidding system is an extra complication that I could perhaps add later, but I don't think it would be required because the free market value of votes would be pretty obvious given which offers are getting bought and which ones are getting ignored.
I think it's safe to say that you could sell your votes for slightly more than they are worth, because there is extra value in exploiting the garbage trending tab.
However, this also brings up the question of curation and using vote buying to manipulate it. If you buy votes the second you post something you'll receive 25% more money than if you waited half an hour.
It's pretty obvious that the advent of vote buying popularity has created a need to give
curation a complete makeover. I've been saying for a while now that curation should revolve around resteems.