I don't want to say tough cookies, but if OPs characterization isn't hyperbole("the lion's share of our operational costs are from needing to scale to handle the huge amount of bot traffic."), then it can be a situation where you have to choose between 1) cut off a huge chunk of bots, but upset a tiny percent of users, and improve the service for everyone else, or 2) simply not provide the service at all due to costs.