I'm pretty new and may be wrong but it seems Steemit as a platform and Steem as a cryptocurrency derives value from the quality of content creation and the stability and growth of the platform will only be sustainable if there is quality content that people want to read and engage with. The users of Steemit are in a sense the owners of it, both figuratively and because of their monetary investment literally also. Most platforms have someone at the helm steering the ship but it seems to some extent Steem is a conglomerate of large and small influencers with varying degrees of self interest that all have a stake but the ship ends up sailing whrever the tides go. It seems right now there is not enough incentive in the long term platform value investment (that is increasing/rewarding quality content) vs the short term money to be made by selling votes. Hopefully the tide will turn on this or someone or some groups working behind the scenes are going to grab the wheel at some point
The wheel was grabbed, but stinc hardforked to bring us here.
Some of the responsible whales flagged the abusive whales and stinc enabled vote selling and negated the experiment so that the abusive whales could continue.