Another great post, inviting lots of thinking.
"Whale wars" re differences of opinion seem to be consuming steem ATM
possibly due to bot voting, possibly due to political correctness (ie diff opinions on a subject) but the thing that stands out to me is the inequality.

And as much as steem is a "distributed" system, it is this inequality (a whale can wipe out months of hard work by a minnow in just seconds) that may lead to the downfall of the system IMHO.

I see that FB is now introducing a "payment" system for content.
Given that FB is already established I wonder if that will kill steem before it really gets off the ground?.

Steem needs to focus on a balanced community, rather than a "welfare system" of whales giving handouts/ups IMHO.

I get the "concept" of community on steem, I just have yet to see it actually working. ie most rewards (90%?) go to a few % (1-2%?) from what I have sen/read in the stats