I don't fully understand the intricacies of steemit but I'm trying to use it in the same way I use reddit . . . naturally.
I think a lot of people here have $$ on their mind and most (if not all) actions are motivated by the possibility of financial reward. I've caught myself weighing the importance of whether or not to comment, whether or not to post and it's because of the financial consequences.
I see a lot of posts with zero comments and that's to be expected. After all, there's only so many ways to say "welcome to steemit!".
But if I read a post that asks for interaction AND I have anything of substance, even a crumb of substance, to say: I post a reply. I think we should all be a little more eager to interact even if the post is not our own.
I feel you with that reddit mindset. I use this the same. On th emoment I am pissed at some trends and I hope in time this will normalize to something good better, people forming alliances and writing books and publish them for free with the money they made from steemit, of people shooting videos and then movies with money they made off steem, with idea-leaders posting amazing stuff and going out doing them with money they made off steam and a bunch of other stuff that i might write in a future article :) but..it's been only 3m onths :)
I agree Buddha (great name by the way hehe), I'm still getting my head round how it works. I think hopefully that what should rise to the top is good content and good conversations. I hope as it progresses the site will be better set up for searching for posts that are on topics of interest to each user etc... increasing the chances of interaction. I'm sure that will come. :)
Stuff like this has already started to emerge. The steemit 101 book was a collaboration between some of the best writers in the early stages of steemit.
When cooperation is incentivized like that I think we'll start to see an increasing quality of ideas and articles in the future.