Thanks! And thanks for the civil and stimulating discussion :)

It actually occurred to me after I posted that the distinction between capitalist/gift economics is at the crux of this flag war debate. From one perspective, it looks like someone has probably made a large investment in Steem and is taking proportionately large profits. From another perspective, they are abusing the spirit of the platform, where votes are meant to show appreciation to other users based on the merit of their content.

The thing about Steem I'm trying to highlight is that there are no subscriptions, no ads, and no payments of any kind to get access to the content here. It's a gift, and that's actually pretty rare in the larger scheme of things. Holding some Steem Power allows you to give something back. Contrast that to a system where you have to buy tokens to see the content in the first place.

You are correct that there is a deeper relationship between Steem Power holdings and the reward pool than I had considered. However, the value in the reward pool isn't just what's invested in hardware and electricity to run the chain—most of it is based in the content here. So, while there's certainly capitalism at work here, I don't think it's the driving force behind most user interactions.

Actually, I've been pretty impressed by how my account has grown here relative to the effort I've invested, especially considering that I'd be happy to do all of this regardless. Value is a relative thing. Have you ever seen a billboard? Probably a lot of artists make way cooler stuff than what was on that billboard and get paid way less. Bernie says in the post you linked that he was buying upvotes for it. That aside, he's expressing a popular opinion in a debate that's capturing some major attention here. Who am I to say that my content is more valuable, in the context of this platform?