In my humble fish sized opinion I feel like bots have been, are and will continue to be the downfall of this place. I have been around to see a large portion of steemits lifespan and what I see at times can be rather demoralizing.
I originally came to steemit like many others after hearing about post payouts however after about 8 months I ran out of ideas to write about, powered down and was ready to move on to something else, however I came back to the site a few months ago because I missed posting and the community steemit has built.
Only to find that the site really hadn't made the progress I had hoped. Now I'm not saying what I think would be best, would actually be best, I just expected more to have changed. It seems like many of the changes made were short lived, unless I'm missing something.
To properly get into things I feel the use of bots and buying votes is a detrimental feature for the site. I personally have not and will not use bots or pay for votes on steemit, I post on steemit because I enjoy to and I read posts because I think they are interesting and if I make money it's a bonus. Though I also don't blame people for using bots because why not take advantage of an option that is there.
What should change?
I would like to see the devs make some changes that stop or limit people from using bots/buying votes because I would argue that the people using said bots do not care about steemit or the community. They seem to just be hear to make a quick buck and get out when they see fit. As these people are here just for the money they often post 'low quality' content that takes up the trending pages.
I think this will also have a much wider effect on the growth of steemit as new users will see bad content and won't be pushed to post quality content, but more importantly I think it will keep this trend of massive user fluctuations. When the money looks good people will rush in to get a piece of the pie and leave as soon as the money seems to drop.
I guess it comes down what direction the devs want to take the site, I would assume if things stay the way they are then it will attract more people that are likely in the know about crypto and are hear to make some fast money, and if things where to change slightly I think steemit would seem a bit more friendly to a wider audience.