If that were the case, Haejin could just deny payouts and be done with the whole thing. Or publicly say he won't accept upvotes from rancho...and that would solve the whole thing, but Rancho is his proxy and the two of them are working together. This is evident on every post he's made in the last day or two.
I suspect that the extreme payouts being given in this case are nothing more than an orchestrated attempt
to justify flagging attacksfor the purpose of increasing the payout of the rich and infamous
There, fixed that for you. You really think the people who benefit minimally and indirectly have more to gain than the people who are actively making 100s of thousands with projections to make millions?
He said he is rich and doesn't care about rewards, he also said if @randowhale declined he would. I don't see that ever happening. Instead, he will take his $10-25K USD/day, and flag anyone who disagrees. No one will step in to stop him and the innocents will get punished.
I might, if I was rich and my main concern was visibility, such as stated by @haejin. By denying payout, he would instantly stop pretty much all downvotes. The steemit community would have rallied around him had they continued. His image would have been far more improved vs the respect he has lost from many of his followers during this back and forth with many Steemians. It would have been a genius play.
It's all in the blockchain.
That would create a situation with even greater power and benefit being given to those with higher stake. A downvote on anybody would mean a decrease in the supply of steem, increasing the value of their holdings. There are a lot less whales than there are of us.