I disagree that all three things are issues. We are achieving more distribution. If you are interested read my post from about a week ago, "Why Steem is Perfectly Fair". I will summarize it here.
Each user has exactly the influence on the site as the stake that they hold. That is true with witness votes and the reward pool.
If someone wants to buy in and self-upvote, in a Haejin type manner, it is just a wash. It hurts no one else's stake. Some like to call it the community reward pool, but an Investor's Funded Reward Pool would be just as accurate. Self-voting is fine. While I agree it is undesirable from a growth perspective, (probably) It helps the market cap and they are only allocating their own rewards. If it is enough to matter, then they have enough stake to ruin their own investment if they want to.
Everyone else can flag bad behavior as they see fit. All culture issues.
I can only assume that all the different users view the stake differently here. But the ACTUAL reality, beyond all the "shoulds" and "supposed to's" is your stake is just that, yours. You have either bought or earned a portion of the reward pool to do with, whatever you like. Including flagging, so if someone is doing something you don't like, you can flag them. If someone is too big for your flag to matter, then how is this any different from the rest of reality.
The government does stuff I don't like all the time, they're too big for me to flag.
Corporations do things I don't like all the time, they're too big for me to flag.
All the billionaires(whales) in the world could all pool their money together, and probably solve every global problem ever, but I wouldn't hold my breath, more than likely they're going to use their money to make more money, which at our own level is what each of us is trying to do.
Everyone's stake is there own and the rest is lip service.
There is no "Reward Pool Rape" It is simply people using their stake.
Any user can flag or upvote at will. (There might be consequences)
The code is law. The rest is human reaction.
If you're invested in steem and many other avenues, why would preclude you to put more time into the platform to grow your investment?
The idea of an investor is someone who puts money into an idea and then let's the creator increase the value.
In the sake of steem, despite the fact that I've "invested" quite a bit of money into this, I am very busy with all of my other day to day activities such as my career as an engineer.
I really find it hard to believe that the majority of whales have nothing better to do than to sit around and look for posts to upvote so I think the real solution is for hungry minnows to continue to come up with ideas and find ways to target steem investors.
we are now debating "Passive Investment" with stakeholder. Whales rarely do vote and thus have leased their SP out via Delegation. That is a passive investment. It does not take time.
My point is that minnows who do not wish to invest money will have to invest time. It's a long slow climb, I know because I've done it.
If someone at either level. Minnow or Investor has a better deal elsewhere and doesn't wish to speculate on increasing value, they should take it. That is the advice I would give my own adult children.
On the Haejin matter I noticed Thejohalfiles is piling in with a few downvotes, just a heads up in case you hadn't noticed!
That is a good thing, I am for flagging. I am just saying it isn't rape or any of the drama that people talk about. It is using stake, and others can also use their stake. :) It is all a wash!
Thanks for letting me know, I actually hadn't noticed.
I completely agree with you @whatsup! 👍