Ya mon, some excellent points of view here. I actually like the idea of the #nobidbots tag....Even though I'm actively experimenting with them under the steembirds account lol.

So far we have definitely found them to be unprofitable in terms of making overhead beyond the approximate initial investment. It's definitely a huge risk especially if your content sucks and gets downvoted.

The benefit has been that many more ppl see our content (songs that we've work extremely hard on and that we feel actively point out steem/steemit topics that probably should be addressed & discussed. Perhaps many people are either scared to talk about them or, just unfamiliar with what's actually going etc & it seems like through music and comedy, it makes it easier somehow for ppl to engage once it's brought to a large pool of ppl :)

In this respect, bots have been quite useful in inciting such epic discussions & I must say, it really does feel good to have something that you've worked very hard on and spent countless hours on actually get seen... We're talking about a few hundred extra views per song and maybe a 100 actual humans engaging and offering tangible commentary.

It takes artists hours sometimes days to actually write and rehearse an original tune and then to get a good take...that also (as you probably know) can take just as long lol

You're right, this is a very interesting time/phase for steemit. I for one am really excited to see how it all plays out. I personally find that these "low Moments" are the best times to engage and post consistently, when many ppl seem to be dropping out bc the currency seems low to them. This is really a great time to get real support and attention from real users, bc those are the ppl who are being active through the thick and thin.

It's been great to get your humble opinion on this topic these past few weeks, especially as someone who's been around the block"chain" (lol sry about that) as long as you have and who has seen a few of these "interesting times" first hand.

Hope all's well Steve
JB