Yeah, I'm not sure if it's damaging the reward pool as much as trashing the trending page and just lowering the overall quality of posts, motivation, and standards across steemit.

If that continues, more people will leave Steemit since they are making fractions of the payout, with quality that far surpassed the crap posts.

I also understand the Purist view... But I wonder if the resistance of voting bots is a view that just hasn't been explored more because of the stigma associated with their abuse?

Thanks for the comment @c0ff33a!!! I'm so enjoying these discussions in the comment section!!! :)