An all round interesting post. Agree with it all. But the bit I would pick up on would be the idea of the 90-9-1 split.
I have seen references that the general retention rate in steemit is in the 10% range. I wonder if that is an outcome of this 1-9-90 split.
The 1% of people who create, and to a lesser extent the 9% who curate and comment, do get some rewards. They also get satisfaction from those activities, including the connections and friendships they might derive from those activities.
But for the 90% who do neither to any extent do not get the rewards they might believe they have been promised and therefore leave.
Here lies the dilemma. The goal I have seen is to grow steemit big. To do that, we are told, needs marketing, marketing, marketing.
And that marketing uses slogans like Blog Vote Post EARN.
But if the masses come and can't blog or post they aren't going to do much of the earning.
So what happens next?
I have been aware of this since the start mainly because I've been building websites and blogs before Steemit existed. Content is king in the online world and our culture is mostly made of consumers, not creators.
Facebook, YouTube, etc., have more viewers that creators and they seem to be doing just fine.