The leaderboard is always going to be a problem, if it is universal. If it is there, ppl will look at it. If a service has a leaderboard they are responsible to make it as fair as possible. “We know it’s gamable and are fine with it” is not proof of making a leaderboard fair, on the contrary. As a Bitcoiner I expect companies in this space to respect the values they signal. In current state, WL leaderboard is sooooo FIAT and so is their reaction to my comments. 

 It’s game-able, but not scam-able (I can’t ask wavlake to move my song to the top as a favor, I must take the time to send the sats in). 
Wavlake’s leaderboard also only includes songs on Wavlake, excluding the wider array of self hosted music in the podcast index (lnbeats.com, etc)