Wonderful insights again, @chbartist, thanks for that! And thanks for keeping on your path, as it is the right one, no doubt.

See, those "power users" that self-vote and neglect the audience are not oblivious, nor do they not care. To only mind your own income is the normal way of thinking and acting, as harsh as that sounds, for them. The difference between them and us is that they see Steemit as an income-opportunity and we see it as a social platform to interact with other people, with the income only being a nice side-effect. With that attitude the platform as a whole and the reward-pool as a whole benefits most, so all can share the fruits. With the purely capitalist attitude of regarding ones own gains only, the reward-pool as a whole doesn't grow, and nobody would benefit financially.

This is the same way the economy works off-chain; must of us are just social creatures who don't have to be extraordinarily rich to be happy, to be able to share our joys and griefs with our loved-ones and friends. And then there's a totally self-interested greedy few that benefit from the reward-pool unjustly because the reward-pool hasn't grown because of them, but because of the normal living masses. Same thing. No difference. So what you describe here is yet another way to show that no economic model, no monetary solution, no decentralized public blockchain shall save us from this. Mentality has to change, and you, as well as @meno and a few others I've met on Steemit, do a great job setting the right example. Thank you @chbartist! :-)