Thank you for your response, @chekohler. I have had a look at some bid bot offers and it does look like the ROI is spread out and fairly low, Steem for Steem , but the initial investment is enough to shut out those who might most need the early promotion, so I can see why even 44 hundredths of one percent of votes cast by bid bots upsets the idea of meritorious growth and reward.

I agree with you that it would be of value to see on each post what is organic and what is bid bot driven -- bad content which is not likely to be rewarded but somehow makes big money would be easily distinguished from good content that would be undervalued owing to low discovery rates but is getting bid bot support and thus providing some reward to the poster.

I think that one of the issues around bid bots is that the community has not had a chance to make choices about legitimate uses for such things -- the perception is that the rich are using them to get richer without putting in valid labor, at the expense of those who are honestly producing good content and increasing the value of Steem. What surprised me about the data is that the bid bot votes are so low for all the heat and light they get, but I think that their mere presence is an issue because of the lack of transparency about them.