Why is this any different that it has always been? People said the same thing when the Yankees were winning championships from 1920-1978. They could afford Ruth, Gerhig, DiMaggio, Berra, Mantle, Reggie Jackson etc. etc. and other teams couldn't.
MLB has had teams far more futile than today's Pirates or Kansas City Royals. Take the St. Louis Browns, who won exactly one pennant in their entire history, in 1944 when all the good players were off fighting WWII. The rest of the time they finished last. Or the Boston Braves, or the Washington Senators, who were so bad for so many years that Shirley Povich, the famous sportswriter quipped "Ah Washington, first in peace, first in war and last in the American League." Or how about the Kansas City A's, who were basically a Yankees farm team, trading all of their good players to NY (e.g. Roger Maris)in exchange for fading veterans like Hank Bauer and Bob Cerv? People have been screaming "break up the Yankees" for decades.
And before Marvin Miller and Curt Flood stepped in to unionize the players and challenge the reserve clause, there was no free agency and no draft. When a player signed with a team he belonged to that team for life unless traded, and the teams with the most money and the best scouts got the best players.
The situation is far more hopeful for bad teams today. In fact we've seen a number of astute small market teams do well consistently, and several of these teams have won championships.
So this notion that the Steinbrenners are "ruining baseball" or "need to be contained" is just the same old sour grapes.