I think you are going to find a difficult time getting a response may be for the reasons you mention but most importantly because it seems pointless. Minds are made up, there is no real discussion it is just a pitchfork brigade and what is said in response doesn't really matter. I've responded to a zillion comments very transparently over the time I have run @buildawhale. Most everyone who has engaged me knows how I stand.

Bid Bots offer a transparent fair way for users to gain exposure and promotion and in many cases an ROI.

Are they perfect?

No

Are they evil?

No.

Do they offer anything to the platform?

Yes.

What?

I started out on Steemit with nothing, I made a vow to post every day if it kills me. The first weeks/months were painful. No one read what I posted, no one cared, no one upvoted, and most importantly no one engaged.

I felt like it was pointless, I used to joke "I'm writing another post into the blackhole". I'm a shitty blogger, never was good at it and never liked it. I always have something to say, but I never know what to write about. It was hard damn work to write every day for 9 months, yet I am still here writing every day. I credit that to mostly bid bots if I continued to write for 0.001 post rewards I don't know if I could have continued for 9 months.

I know I am not alone in thinking this, but if it wasn't for bid bots I would have likely given up. It felt like I was never going to get out of that hole.

Considering we have 922,758 accounts on Steemit and only 47,902 unique authors who have created posts in the last 7 days, we have a serious attrition problem. I would suspect that number would be far less if it wasn't for bid bots. I also feel they bring in a lot of new money into the platform.

But it is still more than you made on Facebook

I know, but when you see the garbage being posted on trending day in and out for $200+ with little no effort and blindly upvoted, something just isn't right.

I started two things really early when I joined Steem, a witness, and a bid bot. Unlike the 90 bid bots you see on SteemBotTracker, I paid out of pocket a week ahead and financed it doubling my risk every week. There were only 3 bid bots at the time and people thought I was crazy getting deeper each step I took.

When I started I had three goals with @buildawhale

• offer a fair transparent upvote bot, I was the first and only one who promoted and embraced the Steem Bot Tracker even though it hurt my "business".
• reward quality content with our daily Curation Digest where we go through hundreds of bids daily and find our five favorite posts to feature on a daily basis. This is a very time-consuming process that got little support but I continued to do for 8 months every day Monday through Friday.
• Identify and punish spammers, abusers, frauds, plagiarists, and scams. I did this in silent behind the scenes submitting anonymously through the SteemCleaner's website. When I got called out by @grumpycat for supporting spammers and realized it wasn't making a difference I got more aggressive and started to be very public about the work I put in to find and punish spammers. I was doing far more than any bot in terms of stopping spam but it wasn't seen. I still submit a lot to SteemCleaners and publish my blacklist updates on a regular basis.

But But trending... bid bots...

If you believe the lack of bid bots would have any effect on the quality of trending, I have some lakefront property to sell.

So what would happen if bid bots went away

Hell if I know, but I do know a few things would happen.

• Minnows will get discouraged
• Established voting circles will stay the same or get stronger
• Bid bots would go black market in private and less transparent
• Trending will be fewer unique authors and will become more of a good ol' boys club
• Large stakeholders will find another source of revenue and it would highly unlikely be voting on minnows or on quality posts

Bid bots offer a transparent fair way for users to get attention. Every social media platform (and in fact every media platform in existence tv, radio, internet, magazine) has advertising.

How does blindly voting a post give it increased exposure, $0.01 and $5 isn't going to put it on trending or get more viewers.

I disagree, most users won't even open a post that is worth $0.01 or even $0.20. They will just pass right off it, people gravitate to larger posts. Even $2 will get much more attention than a $0.01. As result more readers and followers. But let's be honest, how many people actually read anything here. A very small %, I'd even go so far to say 1% even read a damn thing. Those users are extremely valuable, even if you gain one of them from a post it is extremely valuable.

I have no problems people buying their way into trending, what I do have a problem with is people buying their way to trending with garbage or even using their own Steem Power to do it.

The problem is the trending algorithm and shit content, not bid bots.

I have taken more steps than any bid bots to criple my own business avoid abuse and the ability to get to trending with my bot.

1. I put a max limit of 50 SBD on my bot when I had an upvote of nearly $1,000 drastically limiting my ability to influence trending.
2. Aggressively identify and punish spammers, frauds, plagiarists, and scammers by blacklisting my best customers (spammers).
3. Gone out of my way to promote and support the Steem Bot Tracker from day one because it offered transparency even though it hurt my efforts and introduced many difficulties to my daily operations.
4. Spend a lot of my personal unpaid time to research and identify spammers at a point I am spending 10-40 hours a week doing it. My low witness rank doesn't come close to covering my time nor does it gain a lot of support for it nor does bot earnings as almost all of the earnings go to my delegation.

So here is a pitchfork ---E have at it. If your left handed, I have one for you too Ǝ---.