As more success stories sprout from the Steem ecosystem you'll have widespread user frustration as the abstraction of "value" is pushed as a condition to make money on the site. When that's not the case. One of Steemit's unique innovations is to actively encourage bot automation. What does this mean? High value botlists make money, not willy nilly upvoting. People who tell you otherwise either are unaware, naive, or are deliberately dishonest. Hopefully, dolphins and whales will lease out positions on botlists, because that's the only way newbies will have a valid chance (i.e. newbies that don't understand the dynamics of Steemit success).