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Votes will be bought with or without bots, they will be done privately without any transparency (which they already happens, what you think trending is?)

Every platform has advertising, and those who buy advertising do better. There is no way around it, give it time and there will be sponsored content from big brands all over the place.

Oh Jesus, I guess you are right. Is there really nothing we can do against it? Maybe I start liking the flag then.

50/50 curation might get people to vote for others more. But I think the biggest issue is spam and abuse, that's why I spend so much time on it.

There is so much going on that is being rewarded that just drains the credibility and resources from the platform. For example @auctionator, it will just go on forever, and this isn't even the big ones and it doesn't use any voting bots.

There needs to be strong anti-abuse with more resources and power to penalize it. Voting bot abuse would easily fixed if when it was discovered it was easy to counter their rewards to make it a loss for them.

I agree. How could that be done? I guess there is no lobby for that on Steemit yet? Could voting-bots be made to detect abuse automatically? Or should bot-promoted posts be highlighted as promoted? Or should the height of bids or bot-votes be regulated? What's your opinion?

SteemCleaners or some other consensus group needs to have enough SteemPower to counter the amount of abuse on a daily basis.

End users don't want to and shouldn't have to sacrifice their rewards to clean the platform. WIth an elevated peg giving massive post rewards that certainly won't happen now.

But isn't this some kind of capitulation? (To me it seems everybody here is blaming somebody else... the end-users, the bots, Steemit.Inc,...) Shall we see it as an experiment? It looks like the end of it is already clear by now. Wouldn't that create something like a domino-effect? If Steemit becomes a trash and merchandising platform... why should users come to it, when Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter already exist? I like the idea of SMTs and new apps created on the Steem blockchain. But when that happens to the flagship called Steemit, won't it happen to the other apps too? Will the blockchain create more freedom or just more freedom for already existing markets? When we don't do something now, our non-doings can create a butterfly-effect. Do we want value and proof of brain or proof of money? Proof of money often isn't proof of brain. Proof of money... the internet is already full with this. In my opinion everybody is responsible. But those with the most influence are more.