There's been a real shift in the last year or so. The trending page is dominated by posts with paid votes. Some people seem addicted to buying them even when they have managed to build a huge following. Do they feel they have to be on trending all the time?

I hear that buying votes is not that profitable, but of course the sellers win every time. I see some accounts buying $20 of votes on every post whilst making no attempt to engage with anyone. They won't trend with that, so is it just to make a few cents each time? They just plough their rewards into buying votes for the next post.

I and others are flagging accounts that buy votes whilst adding little value to Steem. We'd rather see rewards go to those who care about content and community, but we can't do much about posts getting hundreds of dollars.

Some of the bots will blacklist abusers, but others are happy to take their money. This seems short-sighted as Steem is still small. The bigger profits will come off it is seen as a credible content platform and grows to millions of users. Some people seem to have given up on that ever happening, but I still have hope.