Everyone can still have bots.  Several people have posted how to download and make your own bot.  The whale votes are still going to a select few.  Look at the trending page, it is slightly different than a couple of days ago, but the reward pool is not.

replying to the wrong comment, because we were out of space.  I am happy the service works for you.  You have heard the debate, and you feel you should continue using his service, there will soon be many, who will provide the same bot service without a fee.  Anyway, the community can and should hear the issue discussed.

:) :) Agreed, it is not fair for the average user not to have a bot service and only whales allowed to have it.

Thanks for your positive perspective on our service, much appreciated.

We have so many features planned and @marcgodard develops fast when he is not busy with his company's ICO. http://ico.equibit.org if anyone is interested. I @thecryptodrive have a bit of an idea generation disease whereby I can't stop thinking of new ways to do things so I have a huge list of improvements for the service for Marc to implement. The negative arguements however are making it difficult to focus and keep dreaming of cool stuff.

Lol.  Xeroc's streemian service does not continuously charge the reward pool nor does @fyrstikkens open source auto vote bot.  There is plenty of competition which does not cost the steemit community.