>I don't think it's about good and bad apples in general. Just people getting wrapped up in their ego in the face of perceived high rewards vs a 'normal job'.

its not even really about ego.  Its about common sense.  If im going to get paid 100/post regardless of quality, its really really stupid of me not to post the maximum number of posts allowed per day (at least from an economic standpoint).

The same thing happened with cars in the 70s in the united states.  US car manufacturers were producing shit that couldnt compete with japanese manufacturers.  So the government subsidized them.  ANd what did they do -- they just doubled down on the shit.

Yeah, i might lose my support if my quality declines significantly.  But there's certainly no evidence that will happen on steemit.  Especially since its fairly obvious that many (not all) whales don't even read the posts they upvote... they just set their bots and continue to upvote as many posts as the author cares to write.