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It's basically self-upvoting by proxy. I mean, if people want to spend their money that way, it's fine. But it's still a manipulation of the reward pool, and if people are going to be so concerned about that, you can't pretend that it's somehow healthier for the Steemit economy to pay a private individual to upvote your posts or comments than it is to use your lesser voting power to do it for yourself. I, personally, don't care how people choose to allocate their voting power, but I have a fine appreciation for irony.

I take your point.

The bots are a service you pay for though, some of them created by Witnesses, and some pay less than the admission fee. For me it's more about the vote (reputation gain) than the money, but you can't argue the same for posts dedicated to 'self up-voting compound interest'.

Again, i take your point. You are a godlike steemian not to use any bots (or even boobs to catch some more votes!)