Isn't the real problem here not Deviant Art, as much as people making low effort bot nets to trick Deviant Art into paying them?

It's a spam problem, only worse, because they're actively paying the spammers.

Even Spotify has this problem. All too often I'm getting recommended crappy remixes "slowed and reverbed" or "sped up". Just recently I got some guy's crappy techno with the artist field spammed with completely unrelated bands I follow. Of course, when I tried to report this, Spotify only cared if the guy was selling bootleg merchandise.

The whole thing made me click, "hide artist" and "hide song" for the very first time.