Self-voting is not a huge problem. It's more that it's neutral. I don't think it damages the platform that much, it just makes it run completely sideways. You are right that an entrepreneurial mindset is missing. Even looking at bid bots, who are the entrepreneurs? The owners of the bots. They could upvote themselves, but why would they do that when people are paying them far more than their upvotes are worth right now?
The main issue people have with self voting is just that people upvote themselves instead of quality content, but there honestly isn't much quality content in the first place. Part of the problem is that people just aren't making it, but I think a reason for that is because there is an incentive to make content that appeals to a select few people here on Steemit. If I made an article that went viral and 17 million people read it and loved it, that fact alone earns me 0$. It is only if STEEM holders upvote me that causes me to make a profit. Now, if I wrote that article then I'm sure I would get plenty of high upvotes, the point I'm making is more just that people choose to target those STEEM holders directly. Cater to their interests, write articles about STEEM itself, it is the one thing we all have in common after all. This leads to the content on the site being very insular, and not having broad outside appeal, because why should it? I don't make money from making things that everyone loves, I make money from making things that STEEM whales love.