I personally don't vote on everything my friends post, but if I like the person, especially when I have talked to them in chat and heard more of their story, which they haven't told in any posts, I like to encourage them, up vote, resteem, but then also provide constructive criticism.

I also don't waste my time much with curation except in as far as when I am personally engaging with other users, I farm that out to some good people at streemian, and I save my votes for bringing new people who are starting out, who have a lot of talent, but are either not familiar with how to produce a vote-worthy post, or perhaps even who struggle with writing in english (and even, people whose first language is english but their grammar, spelling and punctuation is terrible) I have done some editing for several people to help their posts get better recognition, and they are learning from this how to improve their posts by seeing how I edit their work.

I am not even slightly despondent about the prospects of Steem, but I am one of the 'strong hands' in this because I deliberately have placed myself in a situation where I either do well, or I am back on the street. Well, I am even still more or less on the street, but the street has many stories, the street makes you move, and when you move you see things and when you see things, you have something to talk about.