This post is an eye opener. I have been working so hard these last few months trying to gain reputation by producing original content and adding value to the platform by upvoting other posts that I like, but then disheartened when I received little to no comments on my own posts or upvotes. My 3 options were to continue fighting on and hope that one day a magical whale would take pity on me, give up on steemit altogether, or utilize the upvote bots to improve my post visibility and hopefully my reputation by gaining more interest. It seemed pointless to continue doing the same thing as I was getting nowhere. So instead of giving up on steemit (I think this platform has the potential to be an amazing place for creative thinking and really didn't want to give up), I decided to look into using the bots. I invested cash of my own, bought SBD and started using the bots. I didn't really make any money, but it did improve my visibility and it definitely increased the votes I received (although most were worth $0.00), but I am still grateful for them. My followers increased too. The people that follow and upvote my posts are amazing and I have met many creative and like-minded people here, but we all suffer with the same issue, our votes are worth next to nothing. I have stopped investing more cash into steemit because I am really not sure that it is beneficial and can't see the future getting any better with things the way that they are. It is a shame as the whole ethos behind steemit was to be decentralized, however I feel it is certainly centered around the 1%