they are obliged to use bots, because others do that and they have 0 chance to get noticed without bots

That opinion is wrong. Plain and Simple wrong. People can and do get visibility without the use of bots. People can and do grow without the use of bots. I do not use bots. I learned to use the orig works bot to show my wife. I have tried pribra's croupier bot to see how it worked for rewarding people. That is all of the bots I have used. Resteem bot/people are a scam, I have, (I think) all of the minnow help bots on mute. In 3 months I reached 53.4 Rep and 157SP.

Not a great success, but done without bots or vote buying or minnowboosting scheme's.