Agreed. The problem IMHO is the way the playing field was created / setup.
It created many whales early on, that now dominate/control the world via tools/methods that have far to much power. A bit like MSM does in the 'real' world. A few creating the reality for most via a controlled enviro.
Steem need to look at the rewards system in general.
- Downvotes should not be a weapon of the rich & powerful
- 90% rewards should not collected by just the few (1-2%)
- self voting should not be considered an issue until multiple accounts for same person is dealt - with first! (how else do 1-2% get to earn 90% rewards pool?)
- votebots have a role in the problem IMHO. they take away the 'social' components.
- The "audience" should share 80% of rewards, authors get 20% (ie opposite to now!)
- This means good authors get lots of followers. Crap posts drop in volume.
- Comments become valued by authors & system rewards this
All just my humble opinion :-)
Yes, it's easy to see all the ways the system has been gamed, but thats just a natural evolution of things.. Theres always going to be people that come in and try to take more than they give, simply because thats what they have been conditioned to do. That sort of behavior will start to dissipate when those people gain perspective on their fruitless attempts at getting satisfaction through egoic gain. They know no other way.
I'm sure that steem will evolve as a platform as needed - but I don't in any way feel like a victim of the earlybirds (whales) getting so much intiial influence and tipping the scales in their favor. They earned their positions.
To me, it's simply a wakeup call that we can't do this alone.
Its not about doing it alone.
Our connectivity and togetherness is whats going to pave the way to the life and world that we're all here for.
This is why voting bots are so popular - they create a sort of pseudo-community of resource allocation and cooperation. The problem is that they are inherently empty and ultimately just feeding into the same purposelessness and isolation that leads to chasing $$$.
I think the key is to join forces with others to create concentrations of value, and to do it with a deep sense of purpose that goes far above and beyond money and lambos. :)
Everyone wants to be a whale - but we have the ability to come together and form new types of alien organism and social ecosystems.
There's always a way forward.