That's true... however, $3 for a post is pretty much the maximum you can get, which looking at Trending is totally not the case here.

No, it's not stake-based at all... people can vote as much as they like, but higher-reputation people's votes are weighted more heavily, which basically brings it to a point where the people in the voting-circles, or those with multiple accounts end up higher than literally everyone else.

You're honestly not missing anything... it's plagued with spam and plagiarism.