Your biggest upvotes are bought and self voted again by your entire family turned corporation. Imagine if Coca Cola joined Steem with all it's subsidiaries and just started upvoting each other to trending in their category. Steem would become a billboard rather than the beautiful mural it would be otherwise.

Do we want Steen to be an advertisement platform via paid and collusive voting or do we want something greater?

A cooperative community working together adding value and receiving fair rewards without manipulation. That's my utopian vision. I champion sweat equity for all. We have stayed far from it.

Maybe throw a few scraps (10% upvotes) to keep their followers / sycophants commenting and coming. Do you think this activity would be acceptable?

It is a sad state of affairs but this is the direction Steem is going and folks like you are not fighting it actively.

Advise reforming this behavior and not conforming to the world through these patterns.