Minnows voting on their own post isn't going to help them grow - a witness vote does though! I've put more pocket change into Steemit than I've made on Steemit, but I don't self-vote. I won't 'knock' self voting because although some might say its 'unfair', it is default by design! when you start on Steemit, the default is set for you to vote your own posts.

If this is designed to be a printing press, where you put in 100, click it up some more 00's, then cash out - that sounds like the federal reserve and treasury 😆

When you put money into this platform and the platform allows us to game the entire system to extract as much value as we can, how long will that last? Who benefits? Who loses? If we are to call it an investment, on what metrics do we determine risk/reward?

let's say user-base as an example
Are more users creating reward here OR are more users creating risk?

I think that's a great question to start with, but one I have not yet found an answer for.