Honest Question from the outside

I can see your point. Simply by having the time and patience to farm mats, you profit from the banwave. Botters do the same thing when they find a good market.
There are many types of botters. Casuals and hardcores, just like actual players.
Hardcore botters, in my view, are the ones botting for profit. They can sell gold, characters, or accounts and get real money. Add the fact that they can AFK for a good part of it and it sounds like a great way to get extra money for whatever you'd like to do. If I was braver and had the startup funds/market to do so I would sell accounts to fund my computer building hobbies.
Gold prices since the token release have dropped as it's safer to buy directly from Blizzard so currently looking like a waste of effort to start there.

Casuals or semi-hardcore botters have likely started off by either being bored of the game, or not having enough time to play manually for whatever reason. Yet we still want to keep up and enjoy the new end level content when it comes out.
I started botting from being bored in the game. After leveling so many alts and getting to an ending point (but never able to raid due to time constraints) you feel like you "beat" the game. Yet I wanted to get into raiding on top of my alt character jumping and completionist attitude at this point.
So I got a bot to automate dailies, farming, grinding, and other minor things to start.
I turned the bot on and watched it for a bit. Then suddenly the world opened up.

I could have the bot run for me, and I could actually do my chores. My room got clean, dishes done, pets taken care of, and other hobbies explored at the same time the bot was running about. I am able to spend time with my fiancee and not be left behind in a game I enjoy.
Then I learned CRs did way better damage on some classes than myself. DPS nearly doubled and I can enter a casual raiding group and be helpful instead of carried. Bot does the rotation for me, I can focus on mechanics. I may not aim for top DPS, but I'm in the top 5-10. Certainly part of the team.
Currently I use the bot to automate finishing my alts and getting them decent gear or farming for whatever I need at the time to continue my collection. Add the fact that I really only have my weekends to devote to the game (and scheduled raid nights) between work and my fiancee, the bot is a lifesaver. When I do get to play during those planned times, I can enjoy it with my guild raids with little preparation as the bot worked towards whatever goal I had in mind beforehand.

Yes it is an unfair advantage over real players. I can achieve as much as a no lifer, yet manage to have a life outside the game. My account has amazing things, yet I have no ego about it and no toxicity towards other players. The game is fun once more to me.

Others use it to automate as much as possible (like myself), while some use it as a slight step up for certain aspects. Some people use it for real world profit, others are happy with the extra gold. And everything in between.

Oh yes. With the bot there is much less addiction to the game for me. I can set the bot to go and deal with interruptions from life without getting overly annoyed. I'm very happy with the attitude change it gave me.