I know it's not a traditional ponzi scheme. That doesn't change the fact that it's entirely useless as a content aggregator, since only whale posts are ever seen.

This site is going to die in a matter of months once regular users realize that

1 - Content is 100% Stagnant: Only spam from whales reaches the front page, regardless of how many votes are given by regular users

2 - There's no incentive to post or upvote anything interesting because of #1

3 - Because of #2, people will leave

I get it: you want to ignore the glaring flaw because it benefits you. That doesn't make it a valid reason.