Let me try to explain it a different way...
Let's say that guy buys 100K STEEM off an exchange. That's less STEEM on the sell wall, usually meaning he raised the per unit price tag instantly. Currently we're at 8% annual inflation with a 0.5% drop each year. Since STEEM on exchanges receive none of the annual inflation let's double the number as if 50% of all STEEM was liquid.
So, he stakes the 100k STEEM to self-vote. Here's the math:
User's Attribution to the Blockchain: 100k STEEM
Reward Breakdown: (simple math, not pinpoint accurate math)
Year 1: 16% = 16000 STEEM ROI (assume he sells all profits)
User's Attribution to the Blockchain: 84,000 STEEM
Year 2: 15% = 15000 STEEM ROI
User's Attribution to the Blockchain: 69,000 STEEM
Year 3: 14% = 14000 STEEM ROI
User's Attribution to the Blockchain: 55,000 STEEM
Year 4: 13% = 13000 STEEM ROI
User's Attribution to the Blockchain: 42,000 STEEM
Year 5: 12% = 12000 STEEM ROI
User's Attribution to the Blockchain: 30,000 STEEM
Year 6: 11% = 11,000 STEEM ROI
User's Attribution to the Blockchain: 19,000 STEEM
Year 7: 10% = 10,000 STEEM ROI
User's Attribution to the Blockchain: 9,000 STEEM
Year 8: 9% = 9000 STEEM ROI
User's Attribution to the Blockchain: 0 STEEM
So this terrible, horrible, no good self-voter "adding no value to the blockchain" added 100K STEEM to the blockchain by locking it up and it took him 8 years to pull himself out of his sunk cost. It took him 1 day to take 100K STEEM off the sell wall and it took him 8 years to put 100k STEEM back on the sell wall.
Don't believe the dumb shit a lot of people on Steem tell you. These people don't get the most simplistic everyday economic principles. Regarding STEEM price, all that matters is the rate of STEEM leaving the sell wall of exchanges vs being added to the sell wall. People buying STEEM and staking it makes the price go up. It doesn't matter what they do with the staked STEEM, all that matters is that they do stake it.
Is it better for us to have high quality content? Sure, but that will follow price, not the other way around. Youtube wasn't full of serious videos at first, it wasn't until there was serious money involved that people made serious videos.
Staking is more important than content. In fact, if the UI was changed to be much more like Twitter and everybody was getting $0.25-$5 for saying something within 150 characters I think Steem would be way more popular right now.