You know, you know where you can go if you prefer the social networks where hidden, non participating users completely regulate the agenda of discussion, social networks that still haven't got a working business model that yields actual profits (You do realise that Twitter and Facebook still haven't turned a profit, right?).
The bad behaviour of big stakeholders is bad for the network as a whole, but it is worse for them than anyone else, in terms of the result in their portfolio. I have an idea this is why regular stock markets include 'Preferred' stocks, where people can hold a stake without having any influence in the democracy within the system - they simply may not want to. In the case of this system, the reason for such a variant not having voting power but getting bigger yields is visible: Unlike in a corporation, voting provides yields to those who get the votes for their ideas. If you don't want to vote, you get no benefit of having a say but no benefit in exchange.
It is a recent change, you can now, yourself, disable your voting power. But it does not take your voting power's monetary value out of the equation. It should come back to your share in part as a dividend. I see several big stakeholders who seem to me to be unhappy about having to be active voters to gain a benefit, they hate the constant seeking of their attention and the attention seeking behaviour in general. Their share of vote rewards does not return to them unless they vote, in the form of curation rewards. I think it should be possible to own a stock in Steem without granting vote power.
Group preference is a natural outcome of a group, as all individuals have preference and as a total there is a tendency for the group towards certain things. As I say, if you don't like it, build your own, go somewhere else where there isn't a monetary impact of human behaviour. The developers of Steem are working to liberalise the rewards for participation more outside of vote power allocation based on share, but you can't just do something and then say it's solved without monitoring and adapting it to the result.
I think that even in the 2 months I have been here, there has been significant changes in the way people are behaving because of the changes in incentive that have been made. It is definitely a better place now than then, and the devs don't rest, they keep monitoring, reading people's ideas, and the best ones have a way of bubbling up to the surface and becoming clear imperatives.
Besides, the only thing the Whales have in common is a big stake in the success of Steem. This is not a criteria that leads to nepotism. That can only come from privilege granting from a top-down hierarchic arrangement. Here, you can jump in at the top if you slap down enough cash. Maybe you think that disadvantages you because - like me - you don't have a lot of cash. But over time, having good ideas can prove to be more powerful anyway. I started with nothing, and from good ideas I have built up my power to influence, and anyone can do this if they are determined and have good ideas.