Attempting to improve things by coding is somewhat similar to attempts to improve things by regulation.
People identify a problem. The coders develop procedures to solve the problem. People familiar with the coders find a new way to game the system and more code ensues.
After a few rounds of the coding game one finds the system completely compromised with a few insiders gaming the system.
This is actually the way that Google rolled out its algorithm. The market perceived a problem with the current code. Google added new layers to algorithm to the public praise.
Everyone praised the increasingly complex algorithm until one day they woke up and found Google gamed by a the technorati and a few large media companies.
IMHO, the solution isn't to have just one system that claims to be governed by a distributed process, but to create a network with thousands of competing sites.
I jumped on the SteemIt wagon in 2018. One could still feel the potential of the site, but even then it was clear the system was gained by the whales and nothing but frustration for the plankton.