This is a very well-done and thoughtful post on the future of upvote bot accounts. One interesting thought I heard about this subject recently is that even if people are only using the bots for visibility, they are still taking liquid rewards and only gaining back a very small amount of liquid reward (if they have split the post's rewards 50/50). If someone powers up a post 100%, they will be moving liquid STEEM or SBD to a bot account and ultimately only gaining VESTS. For some people this may not be an issue, but all of the sudden the huge bot accounts are drowning in liquid rewards that they can use for other purposes including transferring them off of the platform, while the average minnow is left with only marginally better voting power.
There are many things to consider, but I appreciate you taking the first step by sharing your thoughts here today.
In the spirit of looking forward to more great content from you, it's my pleasure to invite you to join The Unmentionables. If you're already on Discord, message ethandsmith (if you have to friend me, that's fine.) or message ethandsmith on Steemit.chat. I'll get you the link to our server, and you can join our community! We look forward to having you!
Thanks for your comment, and the invite, @ethandsmith.
My concern is mostly with Steem's longterm ability to attract (Angel) investors and thus the opportunities to build upon the blockchain (without needing SMTs, since they will operate in their own silo and may not necessarily improve the value of Steem).
The beauty of Steem is that we are given another stab at recreating a _new Internet"/social network of sorts. Both with on- and off-Steem opportunitis. This blockchain is one of the possibly most disruptive ones currently available and I hope we will be able to take the opportunities available.