Steemit is great platform for the masses in the long run because it is a decentralized platform but this platform is also suffering from scam, which is increasing day by day.
I know its hard for minnows to get attention and grow at a very slow rate, i also personally use Whale bots to upvote and promote my articles but that's the price you have to pay in the beginning but exploiting minnowsupport programs is totally unfair. Many users are creating hundreds of accounts just for personal gain with zero contribution to Steemit community.
Below is a sample video of how fake likes are produced, i hope Steemit does not become victim of this kind of activity.
Its so great to see that some accountability is also in order even on Steemit and many witnesses, users are taking steps to control,monitor and flag this kind of activity. I know only few of them but i would still like to appreciate what they are doing 
Video credit: Link