Sorry I somehow missed this post, but caught Guilty's post.

You are definitely touching on topics that are clearly the case in many ways and there are many people talking about it all, now, after the fact.

So here is my comment from GP's post:

Time will tell as far as how all the free downvotes affect the economy.

However, there are some things that too many people can't see beyond the treeline:

Leasing SP (stake)

Well, isn't that the same thing, think about it.
One pays to increase their SP, so that their vote is higher in value.
It is used to upvote whatever that person wants to vote on.
The exact same thing as "bid bots":
One pays for a one time vote from a user that has a high level of SP.

Same sh#t different bucket.

Then how about the other thing that people don't see right in front of their noses:

The demand for Steem and SBD affect the prices of these tokens.

By getting rid of the bodbots, we have literally deleted the most frequently used tool out there which was placing a demand for Steem.
and somewhat a demand for SBD to be exchanged to Steem.

Note: early 2018 when I suggested that we should lobby for bidbots to use the internal exchange of SBD to Steem, whereby SBD gets burned, many said "NO".

OK. I STILL SAY "THINK ABOUT IT".

Won't go into that here, no point in wasting my time on it again, as most won't even bother to think about it, let alone do the maths.

Further more:
prior to the bidbots, there were many instances where people were selling their votes privately via all sorts of means and devious little third, fourth fiftyseventh accounts.

Bidbots got rid of all of that.

and as for the circlejerks.

Well I called it and again I was told "NO".

Plus the bidbots were accepting delegations and paying out accordingly. So they were not making any one person rich, they were open to ANYONE who saw any opportunity there to invest into Steem and STAKE IT.

Rather nice thought for those out there who trade away all day every day only to maybe lose money if it is a bad day. Bidbots gave those people out there in the Crypto Sphere a REAL option as far as INVESTING goes.

Nobody stopped anyone from using manual curation for anything at any given time.

In fact it was always encouraged by every single Steemian, including the bidbot owners.

Did I own a bidbot?
NO

Did I ever delegate to a bid bot?
Yes, once, to a bloke from India who asked if I would delegate to help him start up his own business and become financially independent in life.
It was I think 500 SP.
This was in 2018.
Once he had a few thousand SP in delegation I undelegated my 500 SP, as he was well above 0.

So please don't think that I was some Bidbot owner or anything.

I just lay things out from an angle that many loudmouths out there don't ever want to express.
Most of them being people who want everything for free in life.

So yeah, in other words they want the whales to vote on their sh#t for free.

Which had absolutely nothing to do with bidbots, but they couldn't stand the fact that some people were able to make a circa upt to 5% profit at times on invested funds.

Wooooohooooo imagine that, potential profit of up to 5%, better than any fk banks out there.

Don't see why that would intrigue anyone in the Crypto sphere to want to take a look at these private business running bidbots.

Dude, everything you said is spot on, but I know that the only place where I can say this and not get judged by the post author for laying things out without gift wrapping is when talking with you.

Not many people out there can handle facts nowadays.

Cheers.

and yes:

As I openly said, time will tell.

Demand, business, economics vs "feelings".

Time will definitely tell.

Cheers.

PS. Here is a suggestion to fill in the gap:

Reward downvotes.
There it is, the more a person downvotes the more money they can make.

Wooohoooo gap filled.

Free downvotes + rewards.

I bet some people will love that!

ref: https://steemit.com/newsteem/@guiltyparties/filling-the-bid-bot-hole#@jackmiller/pz5reg

I think that I expressed myself bluntly enough for all readers to catch on!