I think because the price of steem is tanking, the elites need to make changes to stop the downtrend, and flagging to reduce rewards from users who earn huge rewards everyday while not garnering the attention needed for steemit growth, is a good move to increase the price of steem. In an economy based on attention, and user growth from that attention, a meme that draws attention from hundreds of users on and off steemit deserves more rewards than a well written blog post on a topic nobody cares about