I feel actively downvoting/flagging his posts may not be an ethically sound solution in this case either.
Can someone explain to me the ethical stigma surrounding downvoting? On any other site, Reddit, Youtube, etc. downvoting is never an issue. One of the biggest problems with Steemit right now is the waves of bullshit spam content you have to wade through before getting to real material.
there's a spammed wall of content that's half hearted, meanwhile i pour 4 hours into creating something and putting it together and jump through hoops to get it uploaded to d.tube only for me to be the only person who upvoted my own post even though its original work? not 1 other person upvoted my last post other than myself and my blog is being repressed because its not "quality". one account I noticed would claim to draw 'popular' mainstream anime that's clearly just downloaded from google, or 'draw' pewdiepie but it was clearly a pic changed to black and white but gets more upvotes than my original art.
Downvoting spam is perfectly fine in my eyes. Downvoting a Steemian just because he earns a lot, isn't.
If it's the system that's broke we shouldn't be attacking individuals, but rather the system
Well, the whole idea behind flagging is the ability to self regulate the economy and make sure people like haejin don't get more than they deserve. Literally as you flag it says for a reason to flag, "disagreement with payouts."
People need to stop crying about flagging. It is part of the idea of Steem. Not some crazy terrible thing.
Flagging is fine to an extent. Starting a post citing a riot to "pile on" another user is flat out bullying and shouldn't be tolerated on any platform.
I definitely agree with you that the system is broken. Of course, Steemit is going through heavy growing pains right now, and it's only exacerbated by the insane price of SBD. I'm happy for haejin and glad that he's doing very well for himself, but I understand that his frequent-posting behavior ultimately hurts all users on the platform. That kind of behavior might encourage flagging until a better solution can be found - the first reason listed to flag is disagreement over reward values.
the individuals that profit from the broken system fight to protect that flaw in the system, thus we must fight them to fight the flaws.
you described the problem pretty well.
click the flag, and check the first reason you should flag a post.
and the 4th