Steem has been a platform where whales thrive since its inception - it was even designed for that purpose. People should be incentivized to buy into Steem, so they have power in the system. This was the case even more so in the past than today since the stake is far more distributed.
And vote-selling is simply one way for people to cope with the way content-discovery on Steemit (and most other frontends) has been designed. In the past, people were much more reliant on whales upvoting their content, thus gaining visibility; than they are today. Thanks to vote-selling.
Now, should everyone be able to reach trending with their potential shitty content? No. But putting the blame on me, for giving people what they want - I think you're making it a bit too easy for yourself throwing blame around. Especially, since I've still powered up nearly everything (~99%) I made on Steem. You're welcome.