Buying votes on Steemit: is it all bad?

Yesterday I paid a bunch of bots to boost my last post to the trending page. The post is in my own opinion a well-written article about my first adventure in Romania. It is not my first time I use voting bots, but it IS my first time I ever fired it up to hit the trending pages. to my surprise, I didn't receive a single comment regarding my "vote purchasing". People just simply seem to ignore that fact. I had expected some comments regarding this but it seems like if you make a solid post, people are "okay" with you buying votes? That or they just didn't realize it, although I find that unlikely given I see all kind of comments in other trending posts that gets almost bombarded with comments about it. The last 24-hours I discovered this outcome and It made me reflect a lot about this whole topic of buying votes.

The difficulty of hitting the trending pages without voting bots

I think it is next to impossible to hit the trending pages without "boosting" your own post right now, at least for 99% of everyone who blogs here. A year back getting to the trending pages happened relatively frequently because some whale came by to grant me a powerful vote. But this is just not the case anymore and in my opinion, somewhat for the better?

But this also means if you want to reach the trending page, one way or another you need STEEM

Either you BUY some Steem or power down some of your beloved steempower.

Either way, SP(steempower) is not enough anymore, you also need liquid Steem if you want to promote yourself. If we objectively take away the "ethical" question "if it is alright to boost your own post", what does this actually mean for Steem as a currency? I am not an expert in economics. But vote bots do seem to create value for Steem in some way. Since it creates more reasons to both hold Steempower AND Steem.

It is worth noting we are talking about the trending page here, I also know there are so many other ways to get success than hitting trending pages. By focusing on Creating your own "smaller" network between you and your followers(or those you follow) can prove to be just as efficient.

Maybe voting bots could be a solid part of STEEM, if we could get it under control?

I know I speak in an idealistic way now, but for those new people joining the platform who might be great at writing articles. They often just cannot get the exposure to keep going. Surely if they work enough they can get through, a lot of us have done that. But it would also make sense to make investing in Steem an attractive option as well? Instead of the impossible mission of investing like 40k SP that few can afford. Now there is the possibility for people just start out investing 100 or 200 in Steem and go from there by promoting their posts? In my opinion this post promotion creates a space where everyone can get their articles seen if they really wish and with a much smaller investment. (at least for the moment) I would even go as far as saying those who do promote "trash" posts to the top, creates some sort of awareness this is a problem that has to be dealt with and if we wish bots do be part of the platform, it should be done right.

Besides, those who were here before the bots will know trending pages have never really been of any use. So maybe we should look at that as an independent problem regardless of vote bots?

There's most likely some perspectives I don't include that could fight this argument but to me, it could seem solid if we could create the "right space" for it to happen. Having liquid Steem that people can trade back and forth is no bad thing at all, in fact we need the volume badly. To allow people making smaller investments and still having good reasons to make larger, could be quite healthy for Steem? Maybe some people with better knowledge could answer this question. But to me it makes sense. Voting bots gives another reason for people to aquire Steem.

Voting bots might just be another era on Steem and we might find better ways, but..

Something in me truly hopes we either find a solution for voting bots where they can be integrated into Steemit in a proper way. Or we move in a completely different direction and I am honestly open for both at this point.

But sometimes we also just have to adapt to what the current situation is while we wait for these things to happen. I know a lot of people are fighting for this platform for the better and I trust in those people, that is what we call "witnesses". But some us such as myself just wanna write and read. Basically just being the consumers and not too much interaction with the "politics" of this platform.

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A few last words before we start fighting

I know I have no authority or special knowledge besides being a blogger on Steemit for one year. My opinion is shaped based on the rest of the community and what I experience through my daily usage of Steemit. This does not mean I am right in what I am saying here, in fact, I might be entirely wrong.
But for my part, voting bots do have a good impact on my own work. Since I make sure it at least will meet a certain standard before I fire it up. I might even use it more in the future for this reason, since I feel I am in control of my own work.

Having multiple paths for "success" here on Steemit don't seem too bad maybe.

So with that said I would love to hear your opinion regarding voting bots?

-holm