Right. Inflation is a factor. However, rewards were more available 2 years ago. That's a fact. Inflation + whales may impact why rewards are so low right now; however, bots do return awards comparable to what people were getting 2 years ago. That's also a fact. 

Regardless of why rewards are low, bots aren't the problem. They bring rewards back to users. You can call it pay-to-play, but it's the same as what happens in any economy. Early-adopters become the big winners and they grow large. There are a lot of examples in history of this happening. They can hoard it making things worse (classism) or they can recirculate.

Just consider what things would be like without bots for a second. Suppose all the bots were gone tomorrow. Do you think everyone suddenly has more of the reward pool? Nope. The whales still have it. Here's what changes.

1. A lot more spam. Why? The number of unsolicitated memos will sky-rocket asking for whales to please look at their posts and bless them with a vote. We have this now, but this is essentially what bidding is. It doesn't go away, just the bots. 
1. Whales will suddenly start writing a ridiculous number of posts complaining about why the spam is so bad.
1. Whales will start retaliating (there's no blacklist now). All they can do is downvote.
1. Tons of minnow backlash against whales for downvote histeria
1. People start leaving the system because minnows can't get votes, still not making money, constantly downvoted by whales.
1. Other spam and trash posts go up because the number of curators has gone down. Not only do they go down, but minnows are now forced emphasize quantity over quality because the curators are gone.
1. Whales live in elysium above the trashy lives of minnows in a land where they self-vote. Some may curate minnows, but in general, they resent the spamming minnow population.

To clarify:
> **Inflation**: there are 2 kinds of inflation.

1. Inflation from the increase in the amount of shares available reducing their value.
2. Inflation in the number of users in the system consuming the reward pool. 

Both of the above factors affect the amount of rewards users get and has increased over 2 years creating our current economy. That and the whales.

Again, bot's may not be the solution, but they're not the problem either. They're a symptom.