Popular sites tend to have them, ones you can customize to do whatever you want. Reddit’s and Discord’s are famous. People will commission them for money. Reddit’s haiku bot and their remind-me bot are famous even outside of Reddit. Discord’s most famous ones include the Pokemon-themed “Poketwo” bot and the now-defunct clyde bot.
The idea of the fediverse is that websites can join a league of nations type of organization that keeps the membership up and allow meta-interaction in return for cooperation, right? Wouldn’t the absence of bots come across as highly ironic given their utility with communicating across digital borders? Is making bots not possible, or is it just not favorable here (again, ironic)? I imagine certain bots could even establish communications with outside the fediverse, making a meta-fediverse.
We have bots here. Even your idea of pulling in external content. Thats what lemmit.online and rss.ponder.cat are about.
I think all of this is a bit toned down, though. Some people (including me) specifically like the Fediverse for NOT being a 1:1 Reddit or Discord clone. We don’t need to keep the users addicted to our platform in order to display more ads to them. Hence we left out a lot of the gamification and small endorphine kicks that are meant to keep people hooked. I personally like it that way. And I heard some other people, too.
Feel free to request some features. If you have a specific idea in mind that aids communication, it might get implemented, or already be somewhere out there. I just don’t think we need to add more bots just for the sake of it.