I sure hope that things can turn around in here @gric & @thermoplastic. I stopped using bidbots completely about a month ago to vote my own content. Of course I never really abused them that much.

I have to admit, I used smartsteem to sell votes for the first time the other day when I had to be away from steem for a while. When I came back, I felt really dirty. I looked through some of the stuff that I 'auto-voted' for and thought to myself.. Man, I never would have voted for that rubbish.

I have disabled it and won't be doing that again. But of course that is because I have a conscience - and I actually want Steem to succeed. I think that bots are going to have to be banned full stop if these problems are ever to be resolved.