I have heard the same from many people, but I have also witnessed some terrible behavior from him.
And to be fair, I am not bandwagoning, I have spoken out against him before and directly with him.
Since you probably can, have a look at all the associated accounts and their shared posting keys. At least on Steem about a year ago, it was looking very dodgy indeed.
I don't see the malice you see in those accounts. I see a goofy account, a now-defunct personal thought account, and a personal life account.
And while he does vote for himself the most (which I think is normal for a regular daily poster anyway) it's far from a majority of his vote output.
Anyway, he's not solely extracting value from Hive (as we all are). What I see is he's adding more value to it than taking. He is a net positive, like we all should be.
His posts' values are up for adjustment via upvote/downvote just like everyone else's. But ganging up on him and trying to downvote all of his posts to zero seems unfair both for him and Hive.
Meh, he was taking around 90 percent of his own votes on his main, @sock, @bigdaddy and likely others. then there is the outsized retaliation to anyone who does downvote him, and he calls in the trail he also has access to.
I am not so sure if he has been a net positive in the last few years as for the most part, most people don't seem to read his content at all, considering it is often up in the trending areas.
I am yet to flag him, perhaps at all (or for a very long time). The ganging up is mostly a response to his behavior I think.