Surely it's clear by now that you can't have a voting market scheme that on the one hand pays people to promote, and on the other hand pays vote sellers almost as much as fully self voting without the entire system eroding over time.

If you use a bid bot, you're by definition obtaining a vote that would not have come your way had you not paid for it. This puts you at an unfair advantage over those who rely purely on organic votes which undermines the proof of brain process.

Economically, it's far more harmful. If I could make more selling my vote than curation, then what the hell would I be curating for? Then if over time every stakeholder decided to sell their votes, who's going to vote for actual worthwhile content? If no one votes for them, why would anyone bother to create them? It's just a downward spiral that leads down the same shit's creek which we're far too familiar with already.

There's a place for promotion but the method can't involve directly out-competing the very process that provides this blockchain its core value: honest curation.

Something similar to what you said about burning to have your post features is likely fine, as is literally an infinite other set of ideas that don't undermine curation. Bid bots or other vote selling networks however, are not among them. They're just glorified self voting/circle jerk groups and need to stop if this place is to have a chance to function at all.