Good write up. I agree with your friends sentiment but want to add that there are those on the platform whose sole purpose is quick rewards, after a while though, others usually catch on to this and will start flagging those individuals or report them to the appropriate steemians who will take further action. You can only cheat the system for so long before it catches up to you.
You have to remember that steem is still a very new concept and there will be lots of kinks to work out as we progress, slow and steady my friend
Yes, it might happen that way, but if we are not aware of the problem, it might take too much time to stop it. Thanks for your comment