You make a really interesting point here, re. adding to the teaching; because I was over in Medium and Reddit last night where all people get are "claps". The quality of what I was reading is rarely met (by me) among Steemit posts, and that's no surprise to me because I come from writing communities where nobody is writing to get paid X$ for as payment for writing piece Y. Just look at all the woinderful music peope are just giving away on Youtube!
It's a really intereting question just whom @Dan and @Ned thought they would attract by saying "come over here and get paid for writing piece Y in Steemit". Maybe they were not thinking about people like you and me! At the same time, I find it damned annoying to see a small circle of people consistently getting $10, $50, $100 payments that are explainable only on the hypothesis that they are loved by certain whales and/or have thousands of followers.