I think your characterization of 1% and 99% is exaggerated greatly. We have built a system that systematically transfers value from those who don't work to those who do work. In time it should spread.
All life starts out as a centralized single cell organism and eventually decentralized through cell division. That is what we are doing. If a system grows too fast it loses identity and dies. Things must grow in controlled manner to maintain structural integrity.
I have seen the wealth shifting from a few accounts to many and that is easily seen through the transparency of the blockchain. Hard work is rewarded from what I can understand, a lot of what steemit bases its value on is the contribution of work similar to the (meaningless in my opinion) miners that search for specific bits of information to mine a block.
Our content is the block and miners are more like curators. I could be completely wrong, but I see some similarities between these aspects, and also realize that bitcoin must make some changes because I don't think it can handle what will be coming its way once it becomes far more mainstream.
And you are right originally you created the idea and the wealth was concentrated in a very small area like a single celled organism. that organism breaks and expands into multiple cells with a lot of different roles. Some are vital parts that would be deadly if removed and others are of lesser importance individually, but together form an incredible system. As wealth is distributed, we will find those that are the brain and those who contribute to purge the system of toxins as well as those who just wish to float along and be part of the body.
Again not a perfect example, but one that helps me visualize what steemit may become in the future if it continues at this state. Right now I see it as an embryo about ready to grow larger and be birthed out into the real world where it will interact with people outside the cryptocurrency amneotic fluid that surrounds it now and into the mainstream users hands.
Right now the wealth distribution on Steemit is less fair than wealth distribution within the current fiat system; currently 1% of fiat participants control more than 50% of fiat wealth, whereas on Steemit:
Steemit is definitely distributing wealth from the 1% the 99%, whereas the fiat economy is funneling wealth to the 1% at an alarming rate. So Steemit is doing a much better job of creating a fair system of wealth distribution. I also agree that value is, for the most part, being transferred very efficiently from those not contributing to those that are. The analogy of healthy organic growth is spot on - Steemit is barely a newborn baby!
Now, what I really meant to say was .... "All that said, the current fiat/central bank socio-economic system is fair for 1% and unfair for 99% of the participants." ;)
I see Steemit as David and the US Federal Reserve as Goliath. If you can do a better job distributing wealth than current central bank complex, you win. And if you win, the 99% wins too.
The idea of wealth distribution is way overblown and becoming more and more so in a digital world, as users can seemlessly transfer wealth among different digital assets without censorship. The usual argument against the US dollar is that the US left the gold standard in 1971. So what? What is to stop a person from creating their own gold standard by converting dollars into gold every time they get a paycheck, effectively eliminating their exposure to US dollars... and they could have done that for the past 45 years.
The unfairness comes in when gold is outlawed and confiscated as was done in 1933 by the US government. With blockchain-based solutions coming online, it may eventually be possible to seamlessly hold gold and pay with dollars without censorship... and that goes for any other digital asset, or synthetic digital asset.
Wealth and money aren't the same thing. Money tracks wealth but it isn't the wealth itself. This means as long as there is a platform, there is a possibility for bloggers to leverage their talent for upvotes which can result in high money rewards. The talent is the actual wealth, the rewards are supposed to flow toward the talent.