My take on paying for votes is no sir, no thanks for about one and a half years after using them for a while I have to admit. Yes, I'm no strange of using bid bots but didn't felt too in line with this idea and quit it pretty soon after starting boosting my account using bid bots. I wasn't abusing them either but I got a bit the taste of artificial rewards and boosted posts so I gained a point or two of artificial reputation on their back.
Practically after quitting them I took the attitude of hate against them and even avoided in engaging with people using them. Bad idea. Bid bots are not defining anyone's progress or the ability to create good content around here although they sometimes helped shit posts getting to the trending page thus marginalizing myself towards such creators and being that determined against bid bots was not a good strategy.
Recently though I started appreciating them again and not because I bought them but because they bought me, pretty cheap quite. How? Simple, through upvotes. I don't know how and why but some of the renowned bid bots around here have blessed me with a few pretty nice upvotes recently. Thanks a lot for the free votes guys. I don't know if its just advertising or not but I like them all and they were all a pleasant surprise.
The first post that got some bots attention recently was this one where @smartsteem, @therising and @therealwolf(creator of smartsteem, from what I know) "decided" it deserves a bit of their voting power and as I said above is much appreciated.
Two days after, it came the turn to another post of mine, Centralization, The Way "To Heal" Steem to get in the attention of another bid bot which gave me a pretty nice upvote. This time there was just one to push me forward, It was @upmewhale. Thanks and keep up with this attitude towards others as well. People that aren't on any whale's autovote and neither in any serious jerking circle but some efforts and time into blogging on Steem.
Las but not least, hopefully, it was my post about me getting downvoted by... some user and again @upmewhale blessed me with a pretty nice upvoted. Felt really good about it, coming after a pretty long pause from Steem and quite many under $1 rewarded posts.
The question now is: why are bid bots voting for free? Don't know for sure, but I guess they changed the tactics after the hardfork and instead of being paid for using their VP they do that voluntarily getting the deserved curation SP anyway, whether the user paid for the vote or not. Nice, another good thing about this hardfork and the #newsteem that some love and some don't.
I am hoping for the abuse flagging to stop also and then I will be able to say that yes, I'm really proud I haven't left Steem, as I was thinking at some point in time. I know the price is low but when I see improvements I don't look that often anymore towards the price and I have the faith that it will appreciate as well as long as things work fine. Good job bid bots. Good luck with your new strategies and don't forget to have fun on the way!
Thanks for attention,
Adrian