I've bought votes, the few times I've done it has mostly been out of curiosity. I once bought an upvote with 100 SBD to see "How big it is". It was far bigger than I had expected it to be and I got some unwanted attention with it, started to get pointless comments unrelated to the posts just like some people get constantly.
However now I'm not buying votes, at least for now. Maybe I could do it for a friend, just like when I was new I got a few bought votes from a friend. It was really nice.
I haven't noticed any difference on a long run that I would have gotten a special advantage from the bought votes. Maybe a momentary moment of joy for seeing a "well valued post", even though I know some of the votes were bought.
However I'm also selling votes when I'm high enough on VP. This means usually the times I'm not using Steemit and not voting myself, as I'm usually around 50-80% of VP when I'm active on Steemit. It's partially greed, but I just don't want my VP to be left out.
I'm already autovoting some of my favorite authors. If I wasn't so lazy I could put some of my votes in a curation trail, which would also use my VP for good even in times I'm not using Steemit. It would just require me to do something and currently I'm feeling extremely lazy about doing anything extra.
RE: Lets talk steemit #11 | Do you buy votes and why? An open conversation