If you hold powered up Steem, you always get the "interest" (see my other answer for more details about the actual mechanism). If you also vote, you will receive curation rewards.
But it's very important to understand that the only reason authors get rewards is because people place a value on Steem (i.e. the steem holders). If it becomes less attractive to hold Steem, authors get less rewards (all other things being equal). Vice versa, if it becomes more attractive to hold Steem, authors get more rewards.
You neglect that Steem only has value because the content generates it. It is content that has value, and provides that value to Steem. The content on all other social media platforms has immense value, and we'd see higher value for Steem were rent seekers not 'borrowing' it from creators without nominally imbursing them.
That's why our userbase is not growing now. Wanna make that problem worse? Decrease rewards for creating content. Retention is dismal because author rewards are being skimmed by curation. Curation is nothing more than rent seeking, and is the brakes on appreciation of Steem that keeps the token from creating capital gains.
Yes, of course steem is only valuable because people value steem. But I think the selling point of steem is primarily that you can reward your favorite authors and share in their success. That's what makes steem something that lots of people want to be a part of.
Yes, a relatively few people with large accounts are currently holding on to the majority of value, but that's not what mass adoption looks like. If we're looking forward, let's serve the vision that the blockchain promises.
I think compromise is acceptable on this. Some from authors rewards, some from holding rewards.
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