You know what, after reading the whitepaper; I’m no longer opposed to Marky’s actions. I want him and his downvote posse to get the lid on this bucket of crabs and jam it on tight. This is because Steem is a trap and we’re all doomed. If he can win big enough at flagging, it will prevent new stakeholders from falling for Steem’s machinations. I find the crabs in a bucket mentality disgusting and systems designed to get people to operate in such a manner is a trap. The fewer people who fall for it, the better off they’ll be in the long run.

The communal downvote mentality is a communist training program. Set these folks loose in the real world and they’ll eat each other alive. Steem got some things right in the realm of gamifying content creation, but the whitepaper is using all the wrong analogies. It’s clear to me the authors of the whitepaper are the real profiteers, and everyone else pushing the dials and turning the gears are fodder for their end game. Guess what’s for dinner, we are. It is heartening that other systems are taking this open-source model and running it in a better way regarding distribution, and also by not encouraging a culture of rampant flagging.

Going forward, I will stop orbiting Steem in favor of WeKu. I’ll still syndicate to Steem, but they’re only worthy of my sloppy seconds at this point. Perhaps I'll make occasional exceptions for contests. One need only need look as far as the WeKu whitepaper to realize that they’ve done a complete overhaul of the Steem model. I think they’re pulling it off, and when BTC rises, the smarter money will settle with the sounder whitepaper. Whereas, the intention behind Steem comes off like a scammy, cruel, joke. Next time I’ve got to approach the unknown with a bit more skepticism.

As far as your observation on who will choose the best, it doesn’t matter, and this is because the system never worked. I’m not saying an algorithm will fix the problem in its entirety, but it can make it less imperfect by judging content (not based on stake but) based on quality, syntax, grammar, spelling, and the length of an article. The video content would be more tricky. There would have to be different algorithms to satisfy the order in which videos get listed.

You’ll never eliminate profiteering. The ninja miners have that secured from the start. While you add content for peanuts, your adding value to a platform that the profiteers have already owned, increasing the value of the shares which belong to them. The best way you can stop profiteers from profiting is to stop giving the platform content. If that were my intention, I wouldn't publish on Steem at all.