Well you've condensed my various points from Bitcointalk into a blog post. Thank you.

Perhaps the whales wouldn't want to give up the power to influence which content is highest rewarded and ranked, because right now what makes the most economic sense for whales if we assume they want to cash out 1% weekly of their powered down STEEM POWER, is to create the most hype. The huge $ rewards and some of them to popular personalities in the crypto-libertarian-tinfoil-hat ecosystem probably drives more buying demand for STEEM on the exchanges and awareness overall. But I would wonder if this is less viral than a site with sincere benefits for the users who then spread it via word-of-mouth. I'd like to target the latter design.