I am only peripherally aware of the history here, having read some older posts and some more recent ones reminiscing about how things were. I usually end up on the other side of the argument regarding bidbots, solely because I don't believe they do what people keep saying they do. At least not without major purchasing and to more than one bot.

That said, though, I have to say, they do move money around. In fact, if they're dealing in STEEM, it's the only actual use of the currency related to what happens here on Steemit (outside of winning contests and delegations). Of course, I think most are accepting SBDs.

At any rate, that would be the true commerce happening beyond the investing going on.

I've been around advertising on both sides, selling and buying, for over 15 years now, and so it could just be me being sick of it. I also think there's better ways to advertise than what's available currently on Steemit, a part of that perfecting and evolutionary process you spoke of.

The best thing to come out of FB advertising wise, in my opinion, was the ability to drill down and only target users with known interests or purchases of your product or similar product. A targeted approach rather than a full spectrum blast.

That's where advertising has been going for a while now, and it's also what's made people upset with FB and the rest, because to target, you need data, and it becomes just as simple to sell that data or sell access to it as it is to provide marketers with the tools on site to use it.

I suppose the tags here are the equivalent of drilling down, and if they were used properly by everyone, I would be more inclined to agree, but too many people just go with the popular tags (or what they interpret to be the proper tags), so those trending pages can be pretty jumbled with all kinds of content, too.

Anyway, my $0.02 on the topic. :)