Well, to be fair, steemauto didn't exist when he set it up. I'm not even sure if steemvoter existed yet at the time. Also, it was doing a daily post for a long time, which is not something you can do through steemauto (AFAIK). So it required some effort, but still not especially difficult for someone with a technical background. And assuming he was running it on his own equipment, the cost is basically zero.