It is more like a monopoly with the majority of the steem being in the hands of a few people, not the user base as a whole. Therefore people rely on influencing specific individuals(whales), not the market as a whole. If everyone's vote was worth the same, it would be closer to a free market. But 100 minnows will not even come close to the voting power of a single whale. Not sure how the free market analogy fits in this system. And I'm not trying to degrade the platform--I believe in it enough to have put 2k+ of my own money into it. But you essentially rely on whale/dolphin votes to make any money. The "market" then is much much narrower than one would think.