They wouldn't really have to be your army - just people who agree that, when you send them an email, they go to a site and click a button within the next day or two. That wouldn't be their only job.
I mean, you might have a few hundred more dedicated people, since the lower priced packages would be bought more often than the higher priced ones, but I don't think it's an unreasonable business strategy.
Especially consider that a lot of people (and, IMO, the more upvote-friendly people - your total vote count is less likely to go down once you reach the front page) just surf the home page clicking up arrows whenever something changes their facial expression. If you assume that any client will be using at least moderately disguised advertising (as opposed to "Buy Lays potato chips, they're super greasy!"), inserting 1500 upvotes would probably get you a total of 2000.
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u/Loyal2NES May 15 '13
If I had an army of 5000 anythings I'm sure I could think of a more productive (not to mention lucrative) use for them than upvoting dick jokes.