And why do you think people buy Steem, friend? Just so that they can upvote OTHER PEOPLE'S stuff with more influence? NO! They often buy Steem because owning Steem ensures that their own content gets more exposure.

Steem was NEVER intended to be "fair" (read the whitepaper since it's quite explicit on this point, analogizing Steem to a "lottery"), and it most DEFINITELY wasn't intended to be a place where "everyone would be making money." Again, read the whitepaper! Steem can't afford to produce enough tokens to reward everybody "fairly". If it did, the system would be flooded with tokens, and those tokens would be relatively worthless. Instead, Steem was designed to pay huge, outsized rewards to a few lucky people. And it's the HOPE of earning one of those outsized rewards (and not a "fair" distribution of those rewards) that keeps people posting, just like the HOPE of winning the lottery (and not a "fair" distribution of winnings) keeps people buying tickets. Again, read the freakin whitepaper.

People acquire Steem in part so that they CAN upvote themselves and get more exposure, just like advertisers acquire air time so that they can likewise get more exposure. Airtime is limited and desired because it gives influence, and STeem is limited and desired becasue it gives influence. Therefore airtime is valuable and Steem is valuable.

Imagine a system where people who purchased airtime could ONLY advertise OTHER PEOPLE'S products and not their own. Would airtime be as valuable as now? Of course not. The value of airtime would decline greatly b/c people are not all that altruistic. They are not going to spend their hard-earned money only to provide exposure for someone else.

This is not even a hard question, man. It's really quite simple. Depriving Steem holders of the right to self vote is the equivalent of depriving purchasers of advertising the right to advertise their own products. It's insane, and it will kill the price of Steem.