The key, I suspect, is the stake weighting. More people with high net worth need to appear on the platform and curate.

What about making upvotes on smaller accounts more attractive from a financial point of view? e.g. through a weighting: the larger the difference between the curator's (high) and the author's (small) reputation, the better the weighting.

Example: My rep is 71. Now if I upvoted a piece of content of an author that had rep 30 it would be proportionately more beneficial to me than voting a rep 50 user.

Does that even make sense?

The issue is that most of the people joining have literally nothing and cannot curate, even if they wanted. Therefore the gap between influencers and ordinary content producers grows.

Correct. That's one point which could be addressed by STMs like the @communitycoin. I really believe that by introducing SMTs the inequality could at least be partly solved.

The issue now is that with all the spam and flag wars and weird upvotes, the problem itself, precisely the people who can help the platform — because they are principled and wealthy — for the same reason — because they are principled and their time is valuable — will not join — and the problem grows ever more serious.

I have never understood why the majority just sits and watches while the platform's store sign is covered with hatred. The trending page is the entrance hall of Steem for everybody who's still not signed up to this place - which is the majority of internet users. There's not only one day without drama, which makes this place look like a kindergarden.

I should disclose that I'm a mathematician

Well I presumed that to be honest, since you were talking so much about them :-)) Great. I'm a Computer Scientist, and math was my favourite subject at the university. Now I confess that I haven't been much into it lately since I was working in marketing and sales all my life.

But maybe that common denominator and passion for science in general is still one of the reasons why I enjoy talking to you very much... who knows :-)

Enjoy your weekend!