Thanks for the response! Yup we're converging on something here @lukestokes :).

I do think value creation should be the focus AND those with a disproportionate amount of STEEM should individually restrain themselves from extracting too much value.

Now we're seeing value adding services popping up all over Steem. Their existence will likely have a much higher chance of greatly accelerating improvements on the network if those with a disproportionate amount of STEEM find a great reason to use them. The best bet is to encourage that action is the have a result that doesn't lose out in the order of 600-1000% compared to self-voting/vote-trading. 300% may still be too much of a difference to trigger a new behavioural equilibrium, a mere 50-100% difference in results may be possible for the revolution that we need. The problem is that value-adding endeavours are falling back by the order of 600-1000% difference.

I understand that we can promote the culture, but there are others that just want to maximise anyway. The wide gap is causing more and more to join the race, "succumb to the dark side". If the gap is not as wide, maybe it'll be more bearable for most users to do it for the greater good, so to speak. I suspect maybe you aren't "feeling it" because you're a top witness :D it's a different kind of skin-in-the-game..

Check out this video, it's very interesting, showing the difference between aspirations and actions..