The problems are multifaceted. For example, this post is referencing several different issues at the same time. Let me explain:

Human Nature

It goes without saying that, like you said, that people are generally not little angels by default or constantly. Yes, people can choose to make better choices. People make selfish decisions filtered through their emotions and lust for power, money, influence, greed, curiosity. That's a blessing and a curse.

The Pool

For those who don't know, Steem has a pool, which is a system for generating and distributing cryptocurrencies based according to upvotes, upvote weight, etc. This system is pretty good but it may be a bit flawed. In other words, we might be able to do better. The pool reminds me of communism, socialism, the Obama Redistribution of Wealth, Robin Hood Bernie Sanders thinking, universal basic income (UBI), etc. Steemit and Steem may not necessarily be that via the pool system. The upvoting system appears to be an aspect of free market capitalism to some extent. I prefer free markets over crony capitalism (cronyism), monopolism, corporatism, technocracy, authoritarianism, plutocracy, etc. I don't know how free market Steem might be or might not be. The pool part of it might be less free market and the upvoting part of it may be the most free market aspect of Steem. I don't want to criticize the pool system too much because it does work to an extent, it seems. I could be wrong, but I've made some money on Steemit.

World Economy

The biggest factor in all of this might be that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been, during the 2010's, during this current decade, way too dependent and reliant and grounded and way too connected and too reactive to centralized fiat currencies which are regulated by like the Federal Reserve, central banks, etc. Steem currencies may break free even more from fiat dependency in the 2020's as Internet 3.0 rises like never before.

The Whales

Yeah, like you said, the whale may play a role in what happens to the value of the Steem alt coins of SBD, SP, and Steem, for better and for worse. But I would not have it any other way in that free markets will always have or should always have rich people and poor people and the whales are very rich and that is good and bad for a variety of reasons. But it might be worse if there were no whales for the same reasons why communism sucks. Because communism has no whales. I hope Steem recovers in the next decade. If not, we can move on to better blockchain and cryptocurrencies systems, networks, etc.