The paying for curation model is really flawed, because in order to get paid you have to both curate and have a bunch of SP first.
This is not really true as we have seen plenty of different models for people to be paid some form of salary, finders fees, profit sharing, enhanced curation rewards by trail mechanics, etc. by stakeholders for actually doing the curation.
It is much like any business where both capital and labor are needed, but they don't necessarily need come from the same person.
All the while, the real curation rewards are being dominated by bots and users who are voting on stuff for the wrong reasons. It is encouraging bad voting behavior which (IMO) is very damaging to the success of the platform.
Usually when you see an incentive system producing undesired results it is because some aspect of the incentive system is misdesigned for the objectives. That doesn't necessarily mean you need to get rid of it. Another option is to try to improve it.
I am not opposed to that at all. Do you think it could be done?