That may be true, but I'm surprised no enterprising delegates/witnesses offer a % of their earnings to their voters... which makes me wonder if there's any technical impedance (or difficulty) in the system preventing them from doing so.
If it was possible to buy votes like this, this would be a flaw of DPOS.
I disagree, that would be like saying that Lisk is a flawed system. What are your reasons for thinking that such a system would be flawed?
I like the reply Methodise wrote, it gave me a better understanding on how Bitshares is trying to gain value. Capital growth vs dividends - POS systems, it is nice to have diversity in the market.
I think however that getting payed to vote is not that bad of an idea as it first might sound.
1. It will engage users of the system, and we all know that both user engagement and the size of the community increase the value of a system.
2. It will make users feel like they hold something rare and valuable, something worth holding. Something they would be hesitant to trade away, and therefor stay in the system.
3. It is a great way to redistribute the system so it stays widespread.
4. It makes the system more attractive to investors. See the economic model of NEO, that system is almost perfect from an economic point of view.
5. It will probably gain more publicity and attract more users than the referral system which is in place right now.
Why couldnt there be a combination of capital growth and dividends, giving out "dividends" (or shares for taking the effort to vote) doesn't necessarily exclude capital growth.
The payout wouldn't have to be by the delegator you voted for but maybe from the system, as an incentive to vote. As it currently is now, that you have to pay to vote doesn't really incentivise engagement and voting.
As mcoin have pointed out, it would be interesting to see what proportion of BTS are not delegated.