Or just build a judiciary system like EOS plans to

I guess the CTO of EOS learned from Steemit. An community with (almost) absolute freedom like Steem/Steemit is, and on top of that no social control due to most of us Steemians being anonymous, result in exactly what you describe in your post; The only way to earn money is by licking the balls - in one way or the other - of the big fish.

From the moment I started understanding Steem and Steemit, I tried to convince Steemians we need some kind of justice system what can result in a larger amount of rules hardcoded into the Steem blockchain, can result in additional services around the Steem blockchain, and can result in some kind of community justice enforcement teams. Foremost such justice system shall make the level of abuse smaller (whatever the community decide to be abuse), and drive a better power distribution. For some reason the Steem blockchain removed some of the hard coded rules defined in an earlier stage, giving more freedom to the community, and allowing more abuse and scamming. Interesting developments I must say.