I'm sharing a lot of your sentiments here. It's weird to me that there are so many people complaining here. Especially when it comes to how much money they're making.

I know we all have different views on what's valuable, but a quick test that will be applicable in many situations is asking yourself "Could I get paid to do this outside the Steem ecosystem?" and I think for most of the people complaining, the answer to that is no, and if I'm being totally honest it's actually HEEEEEELL NAW!

And when it comes to self upvotes and all that, I wonder if people understand that allowing someone or some entity to hold large amounts of your money is extremely valuable. If someone has $500k there are a ton(many involving zero risk) of ways to make more money from that $500k. Simply by people holding large stakes in Steem they are doing something valuable for the entire system. If they are active and curating and whatever, even better, but nobody owes anyone else anything simply because they have more.