Stake-holders would do well to realize that delegating SP without any strings attached will lead to a meritocratic curation ecosystem. That'll ultimately lead to a healthier Steem network, that may (given an informed market) increase their stake's worth by millions of dollars. Surely, that's worth a lot more than fishing for a few thousand here or there for selling delegations and votes.

Of course, the whales need to unite and take action to enhance content on Steem, and delegate to hundreds/thousands of the most engaged and loyal curators of the community.

Yes, I know this is an utterly utopian idea, and will never happen, but thought I'd leave it out there. But then again, Curie and steemSTEM are still surviving, so it is not impossible. As far as I'm aware, neither pay for upvotes etc. The same might also be true of OCD, I think?

PS, to clarify: Projects that do not ask anything from curators or authors. They do not pay for voting power, but rely on altruistic whales. They return all revenues back to the community. This way, there's complete apolitical meritocracy with no scope for corruption.