In my opinion, Steemit would be better if you didn't buy voices. Also SteemIt would be better if some whales were more selfless and would simply upvote any content they like or are of high quality.
I know some small minnows who wrote really good posts and ended up empty. Meanwhile, there are plenty of users who simply follow people with a high reputation and just upvote every post in the hope of earning a few STEEM and SBD whether the post is good or not. I've seen enough posts from big whales that were really bad but with $100 going out in no time.
I am also only a small Minnow with 200SP and I can understand the users who pay bots to get their posts pushed to trending or hot, so that the actually high quality posts get the attention they deserve.
I'm also frustrated when good posts or ideas come out with a few cents while a "good morning"-post from a whale still earns $50.
if you are buying upvotes with the desire to get your post pushed to trending, you will be sorely disappointed. The best you are going to get is a bit more of a payout on the post. If you're not careful, you will in effect get less payout because the return from the bot will be less than what you paid to get it.
I buy bots for topics where people hardly look in the new section or I get their attention just if reaching trending. Sometimes you make money with the bot, sometimes you lose money, but if I get new followers who become aware of my content, then I make money in the long run; independent of the additional upvotes for this post. Therefore, I can understand when small Minnows use bots to get the attention for their high quality posts.