Whilst I think a change to the curation mechanism would be beneficial, the proposed approach (like the current system) is too inflexible. Different Steem users have different priorities and any new system should reflect this, allowing Steem to cater to all needs.
For example, some accounts may want to provide upvotes 100% to the author, i.e. with no curation, or at a lower level than the current 25%. Examples could include dApps trying to build their community, or "basic income" style systems.
Clearly some accounts (those currently delegating to bid-bots) would prefer much higher curation even than the proposed 50% but perhaps could be convinced to manually curate at higher curation reward levels.
I would propose:
- Removing the non-linear element of curation - a move to "flat curation". The idea of "content discovery" does not really exist on Steem and the incentives of the current system are misaligned, discouraging voting on content as it accumulates votes.
- A completely flexible curation slider (0 - 100%) at the discretion of the voter.
As I see it, the goal for the "content creation" side of Steem is to get people to vote on the content they like best, irrespective of the timing of the vote or the existing rewards on the post. This will get the best content onto trending.
As for the rewards, you cannot force unwilling people to give vote rewards to others - there are, and have always been, many ways to avoid this on Steem. You can only encourage them back to manual curation by providing the flexibility to distribute the level of rewards they are comfortable with.