I've heard this too, and I think there's some fairly close interaction between steemit Inc and those in the top witnesses (suspected to be freedom and co., though I don't know if I ever stumbled on anything conclusive), not unlike the situation at EOS. I keep hearing people bring up an exclusive slack channel to discuss certain changes as well.

This all doesn't bother me too much though because at the end of the day they still need to look out for the platform. If any action on their part triggers a mass exodus of users it is still a problem. (Like if they carried out all the suggestions of this post for instance ;))

So I guess that they can do a little bit of milking, but not too much lol.