It's good to see steemit aiming to embrace a broader net here. Integrating with external audience seems like a strong way of improving the value of steem as a currency while also insuring it doesn't get gobbled up by a competitor. (turkey pun intentional)...

Creating a percentage distribution of payout (as you mention under "encouraging competing websites") is a great incentive.

For the other artists out there - we cover a huge number of other websites / outlets to promote and engage people with our content. This could be a sustainable way to maintain our existing relationships on other sites while generating an umbrella income from all of them.