Obviously, with the top 25 Witnesses, there are variances among all of them. That said, the perception by many is that these people are greedy and only care about themselves. The accusation is that they are using Hive as their own ATM. Not only do they make bank as a consensus witness, many also bilk the proposal system by getting funded while doing very little.

People often forget that Steem pumped to $8 back in the day when it had no DAO and was on linear rewards. It had zero free flags too.