RE: The Heck is going on with Steem?
Couldn't agree more. But the core problem is that if upvotes are so easy to turn into real money (delegation to bots, selling votes), then upvoting good content feels like spending money, similar to putting money into the hat of a street artist. This is fine if you are taking about little money, but every millionaire/whale will prefer to keep most of the money that his upvotes are worth for himself.
The only way to keep bots away would be if a strong VP account flagged away every bot vote, but then you still have the problem of the whale circlejerk. I really want to believe in Steemit, but sometimes I think that Steemit just can't work as it was designed due to the inevitable human egoism. EOS or any other platform couldn't change this core problem.
Yes, I agree, that's a huge problem. The whales could make enough just from Curation Rewards and Post Rewards, but of course, it's human nature always to want more. They are making just decent money that way, the norm in the real world is 10% ROI per year, but their investment is already making more, has already paid them back tremendously.
One strong account is not enough, we need many more to join, but that's a hard task.
Steemit Inc would have enough SP to do that. But then there are talks about how bots are good for attracting investors, which is true. But we have to ask ourselves if attracting more investors is worth destroying this platform.
Indeed, Steemit has enough SP, but as @Ned said at SF2, he doesn't want to get involved, so people don't think he has favorites, so I don't think there's too much hope to see any flagging from their side.
It's sad when the investors hurt the community through their practices because they would not earn anything without the community.
There will for sure by no flagging by Steemit Inc (I mean, c'mon, Ned doesn't want to play favourites but then he decides to delegate to dMania instead of to a curation project?). And no witness could ever become a top20 witness without the support of huge vote sellers like freedom, so the Steemit oligarchs won't change the system - the only way would be to start a revolution, but historically we know where that would end!