"...compensation they get for their successful attempts at abuse or
collusion is at least as valuable for the purpose of distributing the currency as the make-work system
employed by traditional Bitcoin mining or the collusive mining done via mining pools. All that is
necessary is to ensure that abuse isn’t so rampant that it undermines the incentive to do real work in support of the community and its currency."

And so the flagpool was born, that abuse might be reduced to a level Steem might survive. Personally, I disagree with this and other statements in the white paper, and consider them revelatory of the negligible grasp of investing possessed by the original devs, or of the rapine intent of the ninjaminers. Same people really. That we are here today economically is surprising, because Steem is yet extant, not because it hasn't attracted investment.