Thank you so much for the informative post @eonwarped; I stumbled upon this from @theinbox ...congratulations!

I've only been on steemit since the third week of December and in the beginning, I 'experimented' with the upvoting bots just to try and figure them out, you know, another avenue on this platform. It kind of felt like I was either giving myself a birthday present, OR, paying myself for a job well done. I was successful with them a few times, but lately, I watch steembottrackers (https://steembottracker.com/bottracker.html#free) and watch people over-bidding at the last minute and everyone ends up with only matching their original contribution or sometimes being in the negative.

For the time being, I have stopped using them because I quickly figured out that it was more beneficial to try and become a legitimate member of this community, by genuinely commenting instead. And by "beneficial" I don't mean financially, although that was a fortunate result of it all anyway. The bots have a purpose for sure, and everyone has a right to use them, not use them, love them or hate them:)

Thank you again for the post...you've given me food for thought for sure. Cheers!