I think you are missing the point here. This isn't about 'influencers' missing out on a few dollars in hive rewards, they mostly will already be being paid good money on other networks and through other avenues. The issue is the damage to their own reputation on those networks when they start hyping hive to 'non influencers' who come here and it doesn't live up to the hype. For the most part, the strongest feature of hive atm is it's uncensored communications (as compared to mainstream networks), especially at a time when mainstream networks are on an extreme angle of heavy censorship and control. It doesn't matter whether you can give a lengthy maths explanation as to why heavy downvoting and soft censorship aren't a problem and are fine - the majority will just see a reflection of the control they are trying to escape and go in a different direction, away from hive. The result is that Hive's image can go down instead of up.
I already personally know of quite a long list of medium to medium/large 'influencers' who tried to use steem/hive and turned away for this exact reason. It's obvious, predictable and not going to change without some kind of evolution of understanding taking place here.