As long as the code allows it, there are people who use it solely to their own benefit. Use money to upvote themselves and don't give a fuck about other people or quality content. Or if not quality, at least content that isn't a complete lie.
I've seen people write about this kind of things before and in my understanding it is possible to make the code serve us not so greedy people better.
So how many accounts or people does it take to demand the code to change so that it really is changed and evolves into something better?
I think that was a rhetorical question. Maybe.
@ned has already acknowledged that the current model of Steem has failed at separating good content from bad. Steemit Inc is working on it. Smart Media Tokens and Oracles will be used to test curation models including but not limited to account based voting until something that works for any given purpose is found. An Oracle is basically a system of whitelists and blacklists that allows, hopefully, for telling real people from bots and alt accounts from real ones.
See:
https://steemit.com/ned/@steemitblog/ned-scott-and-theoretical-of-steemit-explore-oracles-on-steem
It takes a few accounts with a lot of stake.