I think the 'eyes on' thing is at least partially a lie.

We have about 60,000 daily users. Of them, I suspect we could have 5-10% who are spammers or in vote-farming rings etc. So it's more like 54-57,000.

Of them, how many are more likely to see a post if it makes it into the 'hot' tab? Because unless you are spending over $200, that's the best you can hope for. That, or topping trending in a less competitive tag.

I haven't done any proper analysis. But at a glance I'm seeing people who've spent $50-100 on votes, who aren't seeing much more than 50-100 views by payout. If it's about numerical 'eyes-on', then your money would be better spent elsewhere. If fact, with a little bit of effort, you can get that many views, even as as a relative newcomer, without spending a cent.

If it's about who sees the post, rather than how many, then that might be different. Hitting the top of a tag, or hot, or trending might be enough for some whale to notice you and throw you a decent upvote. But I think the chances of that are pretty slim.

I see paying bid bots as a few different things.

You don't get a huge return, but they can raise your rep pretty quickly. So, it's kind of like when people used to pay to have someone play their WoW characters while they were at work, so they would still be levelling up.

I suspect for a lot of people, bidbots are a psychological crutch. You pay out some SBD, you get a good vote on your post - and tell yourself you deserve it.

But it's bullshit. When you subtract the fee and the curation, you probably didn't come out very far ahead. And not that many more people are viewing your content unless you spent up big to hit the trending page. Even then, there are much cheaper ways to get 1,500 people to look at your blog post.