well, seeing as how he is collecting that ; i dont see him abusing his power - he is still upvoting other peoples coments ; if he puts his own money back in his pocket why should that matter, he is still engaged in getting content and replies - maybe you should get in on the replies and tell him how great of a job he is doing, maybe he will send you a decent upvote ; personally i dont see a problem with it - if his own upvote gets him in the hot page, fairly quickly - without having to spend SBD to get bots to upvote, or resteem why is that such a problem ?
the fact that upvoting replies ; even his own, can get attention on the platform getting it in the hot, or trending section is important, why would he spend SBD to bots, that wont even read his post, let alone actually engage in conversation ; but he is not just putting that on only his own, abusing his power and giving nothing back to the community - he is finding a medium between the two so that he can continue to enjoy his work .