I think overall it's good for the community in the long run.

It started because people noticed that one user was taking in a massive percentage of the reward pool. When they looked into this user, they noticed a big whale with an upvote of over $300 supporting only this user on all posts. The user posts 7-9 times a day. In a period of 3.5 days, the whale gave the user nearly 11k and currently shows no intention of stopping. When downvotes began pouring in to correct what the steemit community saw as an incorrect and unfair reward, the user called all his followers to upvote him and delegate their steem power. The downvoters showed no signs of stopping either and excessively voted several of the user's post all the way down to 0. Yesterday, the user acknowledged a partnership with the whale by name for the first time ever (I believe). They rested for a day or two, and now they're back at it.