3 things make tribes different:

1, There are whales, but the distributions are not anywhere near as extreme as we see in STEEM.

2, The price of a user buying a large enough percentage of the float to reach any desired level of influence isn't that high. You can buy your way into a LEO whale for 2-3k USD.

3, If whales (or anyone else) start acting like jackasses, they can be muted. Some people don't like this part since it isn't completely decentralized. But the tribes are not a free-for-all. The tribe moderators can tell you to get off their lawn.