Hi stellabelle, one of the greatest issues is the terrible distribution of steem. It has created all manner of instability within the incentive mechanism. I think the change to the reward curve in HF19 (was it?) was an error....but pre HF19, the curve would probably have worked better with a much wider distribution.
Vote buying is a plague in my opinion....it should be vote gifting that rewards contribution, thereby squeezing out the vote sellers.
Steem has value, it survives because it is extraordinary, unique and has great utility; a stable value token anyone can earn and send anywhere at any time, quality publishing, direct decentralised charity, experimental data, cross-border community building, censorship resistance...etc.
Reputation is not clear within steem and because it is critical to the health of a social media dapp, a lot of work needs to be done.
I love what steem has accomplished and what the creators set out to build. However, it is being parasitised and who knows if it can survive....I have my doubts. If it can grow to millions of users and the whales can gift their power wisely enough, maybe. I fear steem could be out-competed soon by a dapp with a better distribution.
These are my opinions, certainly not facts.
Thank you for raising these important issues.
I share your exact thoughts and even I have considered launching a new site that has better distribution. I feel that a group of very committed community builders could get it right.
I've suggested that a distribution list at least partially created out of steem accounts minus the garbage and that equalises influence over a far narrower range and not necessarily stacked according to current power. Combined with the EOS ERC-20 distribution, it could make for an interesting seed for a new social media dapp. In reality, I suspect solutions that are way better than I can conceive are being developed. I hope so. Nothing catalyses change or focuses direction more effectively than competition. Ultimately, we have to keep trying to get this right as these dapps are critical to blockchain adoption and everything that comes with it....the protection of life, liberty and property for all.