As a new steemit user i'm still trying to wrap my head around the whole of steem and its company. One thing which I would love to understand better are the bots, they offer powerful upvotes if sent steem or crypto to the right addresses. Some use a lottery system, many people pay only a few get votes. Sometimes its a pay for our whale upvote, or just giving the right information and private key to @minnowbooster whom has (I think) been positive for new users on the platform. I do follow @aggroed and I like what he has done very much, maybe he will see this and offer some commentary on bots and why they have become such a force.
General bot vote boosting artical Most request a minimal amount of steem power and SBD to join. It is summarized as "if I join my .01 posts might get a whole SBD or Steem power upvote". Is this true? Why should I support the automatization of the Steem platform? I was looking forward to a primarily human audience when I learned of Steem. Of course I would like to benefit from posting software, I just can't bring myself to give my private keys currently. I advise against doing so if you are new or want this platform to be a longer term investment. I recently read the term feast today famine tomorrow
@diverse-thinker's how to join @minnowsuppourt upvoteing bot team. I figured it was worth trying at the requested price, especially since it claims it will reward me far more than it cost to join. However I learned I have to give my private key to them and allow them to vote on my behalf which while seemingly reasonable basically makes me a bot. Which I don't want to be. 
Final question... should I become a bot?
My answer is currently no since I would rather see human votes on my posts ensuring real followers and interested folks. Even if this means fewer rewards, which is fine since I feel that the value of the platform will rise enough over time that these little rewards will still be substantial if saved for the future. Probably at least until 2020.