Definitely, use of bid-bots have many cons. The biggest disadvantage is that many average posts, including promotional posts, are becoming trending and getting lions share from the reward pool. On the other hand many great posts are not getting enough attention as they should have get. This is eating away the vary concept of a decentralised social media platform because this trend is distracting quality writers from the steem platform. We cannot let spams to rule this platform.

Also, aren't the bid bots typically owned by the whales lmao?
Yes, indeed. That's why whales could develop as whales.