Vote count matters. It not only can get you to the front page but shows that people agree with the post. Using voting bots you can manipulate what people think is popular AND get many more eyes on it at once.

For example leading up to the election there was SO MUCH politically driven stuff on the front page. To be fair there always is but well above baseline. Mind you this is just a good recent example, not meaning to take sides here.

Election results come out, and so many on reddit are shocked and furious that their preferred side lost. How could it have happened? Everywhere they looked they saw their side was clearly more popular!

Echo chambers are real on their own (an NPR interview I listened to after the election called it “information silos”) and I think bots could have been easily used to manipulate it.