It does seem that the blockchain is the steam engine of our generation and experiments like Steem hail the advent of a new technological revolution.
If we have learned from history, we know that the steam engine did not free us from labor, though; instead, the workers engaged in the folly of competition with the machine: and they clearly lost the battle.
I would like to share your optimism, but I think we have the holy duty of making sure that the blockchain will not be [ab]used to shackle the next generations in a "cryptotechnocracy" even more thoroughly than the current system could.
Few have the knowledge or time to audit the source code, or even predict the outcome of including this algorithm or adjusting that variable. Let us make sure that not again, the "second class" incites the "third class" to remove the "first class" so that the second class becomes the first and the third remains the third as always – the way Orwell describes in his "book within a book" in "Nineteen Eighty-Four".
I am giving you full upvote because i share the same exact thoughts. The only difference is that humans tend to avoid the dystopian scenarios we are making. We tend to learn from our narratives.