And changed the lovely neighbors into greedy whale hunters.

One sad fact about monetization of a media platform is that people will look at the value of your post based on the money before they open it. This is not always the case of course. Its nice to use a "self promotion/advertising" vote every once in a while to get the ball rolling. I believe that this is one of the reasons that someone might be justified in "self-voting". When your post hits the new block people systematically view a post that has a value attached.

I personally get offended when I don't get any votes, and so I go buy a vote and dust my hands off. It makes me feel like I have some control over what is going on with my steemit account. The idea that we shouldn't have the ability to "buy" a vote is a bit tyrannical.

You are painting a picture of @fyrst-witness that is inaccurate.