Do you know what the most hilarious thing here is... Its actually true that this is helping minnows. The way i see this backscratcher thing is as a response of minnows to whales that are perceived as abusing the reward pool.

If they are doing it, why not us as well? If its ok for the rich folks to sell their votes for $$$, why is vote for vote any worse then that.

Dont get me wrong, im not a fan of Trevon and i 100% think this is a bullshit thing hes doing...

But lets be honest for one second.... All this is a symptom of the general behavior that has grabbed and is grabbing STEEM more and more every day.
Many of the influential folks here are creating a bad example. As much as i am an advocate of individual decision making, most people are just followers. They follow trends, ideas, people, adjust themselves towards accepted behavior.
So when they see many influential folks here be greedy, many will do the same and you end up with crap like this. lol