I don't necessarily think bid bot use is bad it's when people figure out they can work the system by abusing them. I've had a few conversations with people who have gotten really angry for people jumping on them and they claim there's no other way to get ahead. I told them it's not that you use the bots per say it's the fact that you are not just trying to get ahead you are actually gouging the system because you know you can get away with it. One has to look at what they are posting and ask themselves is this really worth hundreds of dollars, back then SBD wasn't so low and they were raking in a hundred or more, some hundreds with very little effort, I told them if you kept it under fifty bucks most probably wouldn't have a problem, though some of them ten or twenty would have been better. From what I see is that those with a lot of power will come down and flag others then a few days later you'll see that person who flagged someone else post a meme that rakes in hundreds of dollars. So it's hard to have a conversation anymore with some little guy when you know some big guys going to do the same thing. It's a on going discussion on here, you are definitely not the first. Most people argue it doesn't "rape" or take awards away from others in distribution of the awards pool, that I don't know or see how it can't be but they claim it's true, you can't rape the rewards pool.
As far as auto voting I don't think people should auto vote, it's like getting rewarded without putting in any effort. Then there are those who leave the platform but don't cancel their auto voting. I guess when HF20 comes along if a newbies vote is going to be worth zilch so if they do leave the platform their accounts won't grow and give them whatever advantage that would amount to if they ever come back. Personally though I think people should have to read then vote, not vote then never read.
The ideal is solid, the execution is poor, the future can be better :)