A place to begin. I have no idea which part is the start to all of this bot talk that is going on. I will decide on a spot though.Yes as usual. I have a point of view I would like to voice.

I do not expect the points I make here to be taken into account by the ones who will pursue the goals they have already set. In everything there is different sides to everything. The gut feeling I have here is There is a big load of hood winking going on. Mutton dressed as lamb is what we are getting. Calling mutton lamb does not make it lamb. We will have to think up a similar slogan fr the vegans out there to represent the same saying. If there already is one. Please leave it in the the comments. I would like to be aware of it if nothing else. Well, while we all debate this, another plot will plan behind the doors of power.

There's always more than just two sides to a story. Every decision made that effect the whole planet has 7 billions sides to it. Every thing that happens on Steemit.com has number of active user sides. The chances of all these sides being aligned is less probable than winning the lotto. It could happen though. It is not beyond possibility.

The first thing that jumps out at me is how fast it happened. Some will say that this was announced previous a month ago. Longer even. Yes that is booting along with the appearance of planned execution.

What we have now is a list of bots which are okay to be used, Those bot's just coincidentally seem to be aligned with those who will down vote you for using any alternative vote. The purchase of a vote is not allowed if the vote also provides a profit. This is shown by the lack of responsibility to put anything in place that can assist in the support of new members to the platform. Retention will remain low. Prevent growth and provide no provisions for any one with a low Steem Power or new account to gain and strength. This is done both on a post and curating reward. Before you pipe up at that.

Just maybe you need to be enlightened about some things. Currently, If you have Steem, It is better to have 400 account at 500 Steem. Than one account at 200,000 Steem Power. This is just good business as it will return a higher reward. Only after you reach a level of 240,000 will you have an equal vote ratio. Before that your vote gives a handicap to those at the top.

If I have this part right, It is okay for you at the top to profit from my purchase of a vote. But! not for me to profit from that exchange. This is all done under the guise of this is the best thing for Steemit and its future (supposedly).

Ripping something from the pool?

Anyone who thinks thins is way off base. The reward pool is set that is the max amount which can be paid out over a three day average. When a vote is used. It removes a portion of the reward pool. The vote cannot remove anything more than the powered up Steem Power allows. There is no way to take more than the vote allows.

The value of this vote is taken from all of the Steem that is powered up. That amount can be 50,000 among all members or 5,000,000,000,000. It makes no difference your % of that amount determines the value of your vote. That is DPOS. The more you have the more your vote value carries.

For this example I am going to keep the figures simple.

If there was 100,000 Steem powered up and you held 10,000, You would hold 1% of the total amount.
If the total reward pool per day was 10,000, you would distribute 1,000 of the reward pool over 10 votes at max strength's. If you only use 5 of those votes. The reward pool will rise for tomorrow. The amount it can reward is already taken from the pool. The abolishing of the bots only serves as a control tool for those at the top. Preventing growth again.

To be clear it is not the amount of the vote gained just the use of the voting systems. The same who support this effort grew their accounts too by use of the same thing or hosted the bot for profit.

It appears too much of the reward pool was being taken from those at the top by the growth of the accounts held by others using the voting systems. With so much extra growing other accounts the position of those at the top was beginning to look threatened. If the growth rate continued on some accounts the control over the community would be lost. The ability to control what changes to the code are made would be lost. This kind of control only serves to grow itself through the consumption of the efforts from others.

The down vote is also automated. It does not evaluate the post. It just devalues it automatically. The rewards gained from this activity again is going to those with the power to do as they will. The right or wrong of the bots are still in the air.

My opinion. Steemit has become a privately owned entity.

I have brought new ideas. I have voiced them typed them posted them. Parts of them I have seen been used in other areas, and the suggestions I shared for some being used too. I have seen the same thing I proposed get support when the same thing is said by another with a high popularity level.

Still none will read this post or accept the side that has been typed to hold any substance and repeat back to me what someone has said to them.