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Abuse of the STEEM currency is abuse of the content creators and curators on the network, no? We're pumping money into the hands of unknown actors who can now use that money to censor you.

Agreed to an extent. Their ability to damage individuals is very limited, IMO. And we're not really pumping anything into their hands. Its part of the reward structure from mining.

Not systemic risk, but just an aberration compared to how solid the rest of the Steem ecosystem operates

Fair enough, and I'm being more than a little alarmist, playing devil's advocate. We still do have that beautiful vesting feature where they can only buy influence by destroying their liquidity, and that saves us from a lot of what we game theorists like to call "suckiness."