One key difference is that Steem has flags. I imagine that once people catch on to others being abusive in this way, their posts will be flagged just as they are now with bid bots and it will become unprofitable. Disagreement with reward has been, is and always will be the number one reason for the downvote. I think Whaleshares not having that mechanism is a fatal flaw.
Personally, I don't see any huge value added with all these tokens either. At least not most of them as they function right now. I don't plan on purchasing any but I'll take ones I get and stake them and/or trade them for Steem.
I see very little value in them as well, for now. The only one with a use case is DEC and they tainted DEC by making Steemonsters a bot.