Upvoted,... thank you for this balanced expression of this severe problem. I believe that this problem will make steemit implode on itself if it is allowed to carry on.

I wrote a similar but much more dramatic version of this yesterday. Hope you and others in this conversation check it out

https://steemit.com/steemit/@yoda1917/self-upvoting-is-no-longer-allowed-what-would-be-the-consequences-what-would-be-the-benefits.