You won't find many people who give themselves ten votes each day now as they will generally get downvoted. I rarely look at trending, but there was a lot of junk there before. I would say there is too much crypto stuff there, but I see good creative posts get big votes without paying now.

You have to make change happen if you want it. Yes I know that means having a lot of Steem, but we need fresh investors. You can be an orca for a few thousand dollars. You cannot get that much influence on other platforms for so little. I would invest more if I could.

Anyway, despite what anyone else does you can do what you like to help others.