basically what they want here is only few approved authors (themselves) and millions of silent readers . ideally those readers will purchase a ton of steem each to reward those 'awesome' authors .
will people purchase $5000 worth of steem in order to make 30 cents / month ?
With 5k investment, you would earn more than 30 cents. Considering yearly is about 8% of sp powered up. Which is about $400 in a year, it's doubtful that most users would be targeted with downvotes. If anything bot votes would be the ones targeted. Since they get about 30% of all rewards.
Nope, way more than that.