We can get rid of self voting, bots and the likes of DTube/DLive/whathaveyou votes and let content rise on it's own merit. When a serious content creator finds they are competing with $100 selfie votes on one liner shitposts they will leave. It's simple math really; when all we get is $0.00 for 2 days of work, we will start doing something else. The effect is 2 fold, because besides being content creators, we are also consumers, so other content creators loose followers etc. I've been complaining about this since day 1. Flagging folks into oblivion doesn't help either; it might stop platform abuse, but will also chase others off the platform. Over the past 6 months I have found that my point of view on this is rather unpopular; so be it, flag away. Thanks for bringing this up @meno. Greetings!
What you are pointing out is an awareness of unfairness, rather than disappointment with rewards. Fakebook don't pay no rewards, so leaving here because @haejin gets 5% of the rewards pool makes no sense from a purely financial standpoint.
Dogs, octopi, and crows have all been shown to be extremely sensitive to fairness, and humans more so.
My own motivation for being here has nothing to do with emuneration, and everything to do with free speech, so I intellectually rationalize the unfairness and consider it irrelevant. That's just me, though.
It is a real psychological harm to be treated unfairly, and people avoid that harm in droves. We are social beings, and reckon society should give us a fair shake. Financially, that's not happening on Steemit, and as you point out, fixing that problem will dramatically improve retention.
Thanks!