I agree with you up to a point (esp the part about how his upvotes and downvotes all came from the same system). When i think market forces, i think the wisdom of crowds, decentralization etc. 6 or 7 guys isnt a "market force" its just 6 or 7 guys.
What i should have said was "your success wasn't based on your broad appeal to the steemit userbase, or a widespread appreciation for your content, but to the support of a very small number of individuals"
and yeah like you said, it was also a very small number of individuals who negated some of that success.
It was both really. HIs posts got 800-900 votes each, which is close to the high end of what any post ever gets (I think there were a few over 1000).
That goes back to the whole exposure debate. IMO, once a post gets "pinned" to the enrty page by high earnings, the votes it gets don't really act as an accurate market gauge.
that said, i think things are getting better.. ive definitely seen an improvement over the past several days.