@cryptogee Great article. I am very new to Steemit, total of four days now, and have been very confused with every step , but have learned a lot quickly, and your article wrapped up the idea of Steemit and the scope of what Steemit is nicely for me. Thanks!
As for your question at the end. I do not know right now but am excited to find out. Take how flags are handled and how they affect possible monetary value (I do not fully understand the full process). If someone is targeted by a group of whales, would people consider that a violation of someone's rights and would the market be able to correct itself by taking out this group? If Steemit can self correct these "monopolies" then to me I say it succeeded. All models can be approved upon and adapted to depending on a given situation, so I bet there will be various takes on this model to fit in other industries in the future.
Nice one Jeffrey, welcome to Steemit! :-D
The thing is, as I point out in my article, there is no point in targeting someone because you don't like them, that will simply harm your reputation, and on here rep is everything. A bad rep would be disastorous for a Whale, they wouldn't just be able to start operating from a new account, because everyone would see them transferring their SP to the new account.
You will only get targeted on Steemit, if you plaigarise and/or spam, which is fair enough. I have seen people on here, copy and paste the same comment with a link to their article, on 20 or more posts. There was one where I lost count after about 75 posts, he got flagged, and rightly so.
The point is, the Whales get to influence behaviour, they reward good behaviour; which basically amounts to, post good articles, not copy and pasting without attributing, and not spamming.
The system will evolve and change as time goes on, and there will always be people who will be moderating content, some will have power, some won't.
We're all in this together :-)
Cg