@lukestokes, I don't know if my understanding is right but in my opinion some aspects are really powerful:

Developers

Definitely these beings should empowered because they are developing Working Product and Ecosystem.

Investors

Large stake holders can use their stake to curate valuable content or projects which will inturn add value to those content which will help in boosting of Site Rankings And Visibility.

Bid Bots

Promotion is ancient method to promote particular Product, Project or Idea but here we all saw that, unfortunately reward pool consumed by lot of content which doesn't had true value for that much of rewards. Hopefully this change will bring the true idea of use of Bidbots and that is, Promotion of Project, Product and Idea.

Content Creation And Curation

In my opinion hype transfered different knowledge about this platform and many pursuing this platform as just limited to the Blogging. But this is Social Media and here every Network have equal space when they hold value. At the end of the day, at this time if we just not see our own benefits and focus towards Steem's growth then in my opinion there will be time when rewards will not matter that much because masses will see the value and we all going to become pillars of future giant Technology who stood strong and Transformed and Adapted all the changes no matter how much painful it was by keeping all Human Emotions aside which is generated in the competitive world.

Wishing you an wonderful time ahead and stay blessed.

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