Only altruistic behaviour -- at a real, tangible value cost -- can change the direction of the system or undo any entrenchment.

Facebook's "altruistic behavior" of offering a free service at substantial tangible cost has made them into a half-a-trillion dollar company. In the end, it wasn't really altruistic.

In theory on Steem, inflation is being traded by stakeholders for content which attracts user attention. And the market has already proved that user attention is immensely valuable. In the long term, a vote-trading scheme in a valueless race to the bottom is far less lucrative than honest voting in a system that attracts user attention.

The problem that remains, though, is replacing short-term race to the bottom voters with long-term value voters. At some point, weak hands are replaced by strong ones, and the price gets low enough to force the shift, but it could be painful to get to that point.