Interesting point @aussieninja
"Personally, I feel that all disappeared once people started investing their SP in Smartsteem, MinnowBooster, Bitbots and Dapps for tokens… along with autovoting for curation rewards. In my eyes voting has slid from engaging and rewarding to an investment..."
This is a two sided problem:
ROI is the dumbest thing to look for on a social media platform. It's the number of genuine people you have in your network who are willing to engage and spread your content that matters. Look at which accounts have the most value in YouTube or Twitter. It's all about influence. To be honest, if the whales are busy selling votes, it makes it much easier for smaller accounts to pick up followers, so I am not complaining. When this platform grows, we shall see if I am right.
Vote buyers are shooting themselves in the foot. They are essentially paying for votes that are due to them and rewarding users who have no interest in their content. Again, I may be wrong, but it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
I am not saying these tools have no place here on the platform, but i do think it's gone a bit too far.