I think there are 2 groups of people at work here...investors and free-to-play bloggers... and the way the platform is marketed to those two groups has led to a lot of conflict. It's my personal belief that people are free to use their resources on Steemit however they see fit, but not everyone agrees. I feel there is a bigger issue with misrepresenting content as your own in an attempt to dishonestly procure a financial reward for it, but there are a lot of users who feel plagiarism is a completely justified way to build influence on the platform. I certainly don't have the answers, but I wish everyone could learn to get along: just because Steemit means one thing to one person doesn't make it mean the same thing to other people.

For me, the most interesting part of all of this is how consolidation of power via bots will impact the marketing of a coin thats main draw was buying influence in the online community.