...there wasn't any (financial) incentive anymore to produce 'quality content'.
There IS financial incentive for small fish (who only wield below minimum payout votes) to produce content that attracts upvotes (from accounts wielding above minimum payout votes).
That wouldn't prevent several accounts of a single user to upvote each other.
But it would disincentivize people setting up free accounts in order to combine their collective voting power (from automatic newb delegations) at virtually no cost (getting money for nothing).
Splitting your OWN stake between multiple accounts gives you NO advantages in terms of reward pool percentages.
Sure, but IF everybody only upvoted themselves there wasn't anymore.
And that's why too many self-votes have a negative effet on the platform.
Sure, but also no disadvantages. and these accounts could then upvote each other, which is nothing else than somewhat 'hidden' self-voting. That's why it's not that easy to prevent self-votes through code.
There is nothing in place today that can stop "everybody" from self-voting.
And yet, strangely, it hasn't managed to kill the concept.
I fully understand that "determined self-voters" are difficult to stop.
I'm simply proposing a bare-minimum code patch that would prevent the noobs from voting on their own posts and comments in order to send a signal that self-voting is considered some sort of "cheat".
As it stands now, people are only "informed" when they notice their rep's been cut in half for no apparent reason.