Eh, I’ve been so outspoken against them that it would be hypocritical for me to use them at this point. If the site has major flaws infrastructurally (which I believe it does) which allows a few to profit off of abusing the system, I’m not going to consider it my responsibility to be the one to put a bandaid on it by participating in the exact problem that’s causing it. I’ve already made my preferences known to a few witnesses and bidbot owners and they’re the ones that should be taking it upon themselves to make improvements that would clear out the spam that is staining the reputation of the site and make the reward pool dispersed more evenly to retain good writers. But again, I don’t judge other people’s choices to use bots if they’re just trying to get their good content noticed.

I have other ways of trying to get my name out there. I do a couple of contests (this is part of the 50 day freewrite selfie challenge as part of @freewritehouse), and I held the one you saw, which brought in a lot of new followers. I also have a community I participate in, and I try to keep engaged with other people’s posts and upvote my comments. Many of the people in my circles consider bidbots unethical and I don’t think they’d be as supportive of my content if they thought I was using them, and there are curation projects which disqualify posts that have been upvoted by bidbots. I don’t think I’d necessarily be any farther along if I were using them. I think the power holders on this site, many of whom profit off of leasing to bidbots, tell us that so they can keep the system going without being accused of being greedy. There are major users on here that look like they’re killing it but you look at their wallets and all of their income is going to bots. I think you’re a lot better off in the long run making the investment in growing the sustainable way making your income from your supporters and supporting them back.