Hey @somethingsubtle, I read through your post A Tale of Two Steemits and it is very well though out and written. I aim to write quality content for my audience but also understand the business side of utilizing bitbots and resteeming services to promote my posts. I think a person should be able to in a free market pay a premium on the platform to have their content at least viewed by additional users. As @transparencybot mentioned to me in the comments of my post The Banker’s Distributed Ledger, An Alternative Asset Clearing and Settlement System "It is indeed a complex subject with many passionate viewpoints and reasons for using or not using bots." I would agree with this and hope to be able to contribute to this discussion.