If everyone acts out of pure self-interest - which we should assume - will this end up in a game of some few?
Right now I am incentivized to set up an up-voting bot. It looks like a few people have the reputation of collecting lots of votes, and if I act in pure self-interest I will try to quickly up-vote those people, which is best done with a bot. When many people do this, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and no-one needs to change habits. It doesn't even require human effort.
Will this game ruin Steem in the end? It might be a nice gold mine, but short sighted. The posts getting to the top may not be as valuable as many others, which means the curation doesn't work, and people might feel it as unfair and leave for greener pastures. Why put the effort in a quality post if someone lucky reaps the rewards anyway. I'm not saying I feel this way - I've been lucky myself, but I can see the danger.
One factor contributing to this is the disproportional effect of the upvotes of our dear whales. They are too predictable and too powerful. The rewards one gets by deciding for oneself what is valuable and what is not, is insignificant compared to just anticipating what the whales will value. I'm not quite sure how this effect works, but sure looks like there is a pattern emerging. After the first payout the whales will have a few % less power, but it might not be enought to counter this phenomenom.
I don't know how this will play out. Maybe when everyone joins the autovoting game the playing field will level out by itself, just like the goldmines tend to vanish. Autovoting also adds value by supporting those with a good track-record. It's like reputation.
One thing is sure; if those with the most power thinked short-sightedly, this thing would crash. Luckily that doesn't seem to be the case, and everyone with a long term commitment has the incentive to share the good, be inclusive and generously share the rewards with newcomers. Crab-mentality will also help even out the playing field, as will benevolent actors, but they alone cannot fix a broken system.
I'm sorry if this post seems a little negative. I've just been thinking about this, what I think is a problem, and wanted to share it.