I am new here, so I haven't had the chance to use a bot, but I won't ever use them.

Bots defeat the purpose of SteemIt as a merit-based social media platform free from manipulative algorithms and social engineering gimmicks. I am exploring it as a free speech, decentralized alternative to big corporate sites like facebook and twitter. I am tired of facebook shadow banning me and demanding I pay money to "boost" my posts so my own friends can see it. Bots are similar to the "page boost"; they hold your voice hostage because if the top trending posts are all using bots, you can not get your voice heard unless you use bots too. Imagine running a race and coming in eleventh place because the top ten all used performance enhancing drugs! You should feel cheated!

I think that if and when Steemit can solve the bot problem, it will explode in popularity. The rise of block chain technology and the fall of facebook has created an opportunity for Steemit to present to the public an alternative business model, in which users are not milked for data and sold to advertisers, and algorithms aren't carefully crafted to alienate us from our friends and steer us to paid advertisements.

Nobody likes to feel lied to, cheated, or manipulated, and that's how bots make me feel. They're not helping make Steemit better than other social media sites; they're dragging it down to their level.