testing testing... is this thing even on?

This is a test.  I want to see how visible this post is without the use of vote bots.  I also want to make this a decent read for you... so here is what I am going to do.  I am going to write a little bit about why I am doing this test.

I feel that this site has some issues with its distribution matrix.  It is set up so that those with the highest stake get the most rewards (rightfully so), but it is also set up so that if you don't get any rewards... your work just disappears without being read by anyone. 

I know that I have a few 'followers' that do take the time to read what I feel like putting out there... and I know that I have a lot of robots that follow me for their own reasons (which I might save for another article).  I am going to upvote this post myself (which will put it up to about 8 cents or so).  We will see where it goes from there.

OK... 

So now for the interesting part.

I was in a discussion a while ago about the selling of your upvote and the paying for votes.  It was with a dolphin who I agreed and disagreed with at the same time.  I am grateful that I found out how bad the abuse can be on paying to upvote your comments.  I found my vote in a comment farm, where the person paying for votes just commented a thousand times and made a boatload of steem out of the deal.  I think that sucks.  

At that point I stopped paying for the upvote of my comments (which I did more to be visible, it was only 30 cents or so) and I stopped selling my vote because of the possibility for such rampant abuse.  Before I did that, the dolphin that I was talking to downvoted my comment to zero and claimed that it "Seems like cheating."

My beef is not with the downvote.  I think that is an important feature that is required when there is such rampant abuse.  My beef was that he upvoted his own comment to $1.00.  That also "seems like cheating."

So here is my question.  Is paying for votes any worse that upvoting yourself if you have a lot of steempower?  

I don't have a lot of steempower and I don't have a lot of money to go out and get a lot of steempower.  I do have a few SBD's kicking around that I could pay a bot to make it like I have a lot of steempower for a minute.  Again... not for the money, but for the visibility.

My opinion on the matter is that it is the same.  If you write a good article that deserves to be seen, it should be promoted as such.  If you don't have powerful friends to upvote your post to a visible stage, you better invest some of those SBD's to make it visible.  

On the other side of the fence, if you write a crappy article and pay $500 SBD's to bot's and end up at the top of trending, you deserve every flag you get.  The same stands for self voting.  If you have a million steempower and upvote trash, it is equally as bad as paying vote bots to upvote trash.  

I like vote bots because they even the playing field.  There are a lot of high SP people that make it to trending whenever they want to just by upvoting themselves.  I don't have that luxury but feel that I offer the community some decent content and if I work hard on it... it deserves to be read.

So, here is my test.  If you read this and are interested in the results of my test and you want to see the next test... please comment.  This is legitimate research here! ;)

And please... have your say on the SP vote bot debate.  Let me know what you think.  My next test will be similar to this one but with the use of vote bots.  

Part of this test is testing if you are a person too... so please comment in a human way so I know that a few real people read this.  Thank you.