You can support small users with your own upvotes instead of buying them, without handing over full control over your voting power to another entity. That whole line of argumentation is bullshit.

who never got any respect for all it did for the chain(s)

Guess what @curangel is doing. All without selling anything, without making a profit. But you like it better when you can pay for getting a share of the reward pool, I understand.