The problem as I see it
Everyone seems to be aware of the problem that a huge majority of the power here on Steemit is in the hands of a few whales. This is a problem for several reasons:
Steemit claims to be decentralized but if you look at the power distribution, it clearly isn't.
Rewards are often distributed in a way that many people see as unfair.
Users see what they consider to be unfair behavior and leave because they feel powerless to do anything about it.
It's a lot of work for a whale to find and read good content in an effort to reward people that are brining quality content and value to Steemit. Considering the task, I think a lot of the whales are doing a very good job. Because it is so much work however, many whales have joined curation guilds or set up their own bots to spread more rewards around without having to do it all manually.
These curation guilds have helped but have not fully solved the problem and are now introducing new problems in the eyes of many users. It also puts it on the user base to try to fix a problem with the system. Curation guilds don't even address the core of the problem. The guilds still need whales and the power is still centralized.
The solution in my opinion
Decentralize the system
Steem Power is an important part of the system and I don't want to make changes that are too drastic, just one small one. Instead of rewards being based purely on Steem Power, make them be based partially on votes from the regular people.
But what about sybil attacks!
Reputation
There are several reasons that you can't give everyone an equal vote, sybil attacks being one of the main ones. The solution to this lies in reputation. To have a full fledged vote you would have to have a certain reputation. It would have to be high enough that it would not be feasible to create a bunch of accounts and be able to get the reputations for those accounts high enough to orchestrate the attack. I think a 60 or 65 would be high enough.
A percentage of the rewards pool
I still think the majority of the power to reward(and receive curation rewards in turn) should be through Steem Power. However, you could take say 25% of the reward pool and allocate it to accounts that meet the reputation requirement. This would give power to the people, but in a way that it couldn't be easily abused.
This is not socialism, it's just decentralizing power
This power should not be given to everyone for no reason at all. You should have to earn this power by raising your reputation to the required level. It is not given freely to everyone. This would give power to the people that earned it and not leave it all in the hands of people that were mining in the beginning.
I respect the whales who are in the positions they are in and I don't want to take away all the power, but I do think that power is not as equally distributed as it could be based on the work that has been done. Whales would still have the most powerful votes but reputable people would also be able reward content, especially when many agreed.
I may be missing something of course. If you think so, please enlighten me
Please tell me what you think about this solution to the problem and tell me why you do or don't think it would be feasible. If you don't think it is feasible please try to offer a solution, because I think most would agree that this is a problem that needs to be addressed.