Bots have overtaken social media -- Youtube comments, Twitter replies, etc. making them less than worthless, but expensive, as my time is being wasted perusing past them trying to find any signal.

This simply does not happen much here on SN, even though it could (a comment reply on SN costs the equivalent of just 1/60th of one U.S. cent). Is this absence of bots because there isn't enough of a userbase (yet) that they don't target SN? Is it because there's just no API (yet), and then they might come? Or is it that the even the tiny cost (1/60th of a penny, currently) is too high and these bots wouldn't be profitable?

I pray it is the latter. And if that is the case, that means the bots are buying some seconds of my time on Twitter and Youtube at a cost of less than 1/60th of a cent, which is insulting to me, and more so disgusting that Youtube, Twitter, etc., care so little about my time that they do what seems literally nothing to stop that abuse by the bots.

SN respects my time ... not just by imposing a cost on the bots, but also taking into account the Web of Trust (WoT) in determining what content I would be shown.

SN is so under-appreciated yet as-of-today!!