There is no saltiness in my reply. :)

Oh no worries, I didn't think there was!

You are right ofcourse, it's people's own stake and they can use it however they like. I guess it's the idealist in me who doesn't like this idea though. I'd love to see a site where good content does rise to the top. Where rewards are based on quality instead of who you know and how much cash you have handy. To me, that would be a more interesting and inviting site and it would probably invite more people over than a trending page where either crap rises to the top through bid bots or where whale fights are in the spotlights.

I guess Steem needs other things to grow, because Steemit just shows us humanity at its finest, which is more of the same inequality you can basically find anywhere else.

And hey, as long as you don't check out Trending/Hot too much, you don't notice these things. Just gotta make sure to follow the right Steemians to make this site work for you through your personal feed :-)