The current state of the Trending page is just a symptom of the actual problem.
At the moment users on Steem have a very high incentive to sell their votes. Selling votes almost generates the same rewards as selfvoting without the bad reputation or work.
It has been accepted and legitimized by the community.

The problem with vote selling is that undermines any curation efforts by the community and isn't regulated by the blockchain.
Atm around 30% of the generated rewards on Steem are being paid for. -> https://steemit.com/steemit/@penguinpablo/how-much-sbd-and-steem-is-sent-to-the-voting-bots-per-day

It will only become worse and more and more people are going to sell their votes. Something has to be done on blockchain level to fix this. Soon 50% of the Steem Power will be sold and things will go downhill drastically. Curation will be reduced to a minimum. New users won't get rewarded anymore.

I was heavily criticized the last time I started a discussion about this. I am not going down that road again.
People will soon realize that the current trend with voting bots won't end well.