As someone who started on here before the Bot's, and watched the slow growth of them from a few to the now hundred's it seems - it's been interesting to see how different people interpret them.

I understand the Purists that believe posts should only receive the rewards they deserve based on the content and community upvotes. It would be ideal if everything worked that way, but the reason we have the bot's is because it rarely works that good content get's the upvotes it deserves. Most of this is down to visibility - getting posts seen to an audience that would like to upvote them is a difficult challenge.

The bot's when used correctly, and that does require a great deal of watching https://www.steembottracker.com and only bidding in the last few minutes of a bot round when the bot has a large figure in the Max Profitable Bid Section. If you get it right, your input SBD should be doubled in post upvote - ie $5 in gives a $10 post upvote increase, this can increase if the Max Profitable Bid is really high. Conversely if there is little or no Max Profitable Bid you will get less maybe only $7 upvote and so will get less back on payout then you put in.

You can gain if you play it right, although it is also dependant on the Market value of Steem - if it drops after you bid bot a post then your rewards will drop. Conversely if the market value climbs you can gain a great deal more. As a general rule if you bid carefully and get an upvote of double the SBD you put in when the post pays out you will get back what you put in - the growth is in Steem Power. As an example 0.64 reward post, $5 SBD post promoter and $5 SBD buildawhale when both have a high Max Profitable Bid. Post upvote value is now $21.59, with a payout of $10.79 (so getting back what was put in) and Steem Power reward 3.79 SP (Here lies the growth)

If the bot's are damaging the reward pool is another question, I don't know the answer but my feeling is they would be quickly stamped out if they were.

#thealliance