@modprobe, my comment was narrower than that. I'm not suggesting that there can't be improvements, only that raw vote count is meaningless and has been consistently and rampantly abused on every other such platform, and those are platforms that don't even award money. With direct monetary incentives the abuse would be even greater.
So I agree with the broader issues you mention being considered and explored, I just disagree with statements made on the basis of "how many votes".