The solution is more competition among content.
I find this a really poor argument. We're witnessing behavior which is basically a cartel. It's anti-competitive by nature. Unless you are implying that these practices need to be discontinued in favor of competition, it is a completely incoherent statement.
You unfortunately (for someone who has been here a while) do not understand how the Steem system operates. Voting for your own content is allowed. Voting for your friends' content is allowed. That does not constitute a cartel.
Better content will outcompete worse content because better content can still be voted by the author, and the authors' friends, but will also be voted by others who subjectively recognize its value, generating far higher rewards (due to non-linearity).
Bingo. It IS anti-competitive by nature. And if EVERY user were to operate this way, it would eat itself up. There would be nothing to compete over.
Gee, do you think there just might be something in the design to prevent that obvious failure mode? I do.