Thank you for spreading these sensibilities. I's easy to give into narratives and selective bias. Bid Bot usage might be affected by the fact that you loose money by using Bid Bots most of the time. STEEM prices have also fallen and it's the ones who believe in the platform that stick around the most during hard times.
Thanks you for introducing me to @asapers Here are few curation initiatives that I know of:
Check them out. Manual curation is alive and well. DAPPs like @dlike @steemhunt and @dpoll.curation are doing some great work too. Also don't forget @fundtion which is one of the most underrated projects on STEEM.
Thats for these! Will be checking them out for sure.
It seems that the ones who have stuck around through the tough times on here will gain the most benefit in the future