@valued-customer, I would certainly not expect the largest stakeholders to disempower themselves, but I might expect them to "choose wisely," where "wisely" means taking actions that support the growth of the wealth they have, rather than the decay of it through short term selfishness.

By all means, lease out your SteemPower for profit, but lease it to active manual curators who will work towards creating value for the platform... rather than to sketching paid upvote bots that largely result in an ocean of valueless content... ultimately subtracting value from the platform.

But people do tend to think short term... it seems part and parcel of being human. Personally? I'd MUCH rather than "guaranteed income for life" than "$100,000 right NOW." Most people, however, would take the $100K.