wutup Charlie! this is Ck, fyi.
I love the questions that you're asking. I too have made many of the observations you shared. In addition to all that, we could go down the rabbit hole about how rewards are distributed, troll flagging, vote bots for exposure, etc, etc. I too am new here, and Steemit is not perfect. It is a giant, and in my opinion, incredible experiment.
This is how I see it at the moment:
This is just the beginning.
Instead of trying to FIND value....Focus on BRINGING value.
In the big picture, the community here is crazy small. As more creators like yourself bring a higher level content, it elevates the platform. forget what everyone else is doing, and the level of production that has become standard. Enhance it. Bring your A+ game. By doing this, you are adding value, standing out and gaining followers, and rewards, and the prophecy is fulfilled.
In my opinion, this experiment proves positive if you are able to be compensated in a way that is equal, or more than, other platforms like Youtube, with more voting power about the future of the platform. It can also just be viewed as supplemental revenue for your brand.
Basically, we have no idea if this is all sustainable. But, again, this is just the beginning. MANY MORE websites like Steemit will be built, and they will tweak and upgrade the model to work even better, and new communities will be built from the ground up. I see this as an opportunity to build your following early on, and in the long run, it will pay off in a sustainable way. At least I am bullish enough to think these types of revenue models, are the future. Help bring it to the masses, and make it even better. cheers mate.
It is sustainable at worse we may see the rewards be decreased a bit but the core system will keep on going. Once we have hit this level of innovation nobody wants to go back to the older more slower boring system. That would drive us crazy! That would be like invent a car and then go back to horse. People never wanted to do that so in a few years everyone jumped ship over to the car.
Right now I would say you at least get 10X more in return on Steemit than on YouTube. Especially if you highly invest. And now I'm not even taking of the fact that Steemit may go up in value especially when it comes to the Steem currency. The Smart Media Tokens will be so super exciting to see other websites starting to use Steem tokens and how that will probably open up for more mainstream attention. Should at least 3-5x increase the awareness and bring attention to these new platforms. Amazing for early adopters.
Not like we can stop this evolution. Technology keeps on moving forward. It clearly now has started to have a life of it's own. If we consider the amount of Facebook users that exist above 2.2 billion active monthly then we can see the reach these new blockchain technologies may have in a few years. Will especially be nice to see more competitors on the market. It's amazing how we don't have at least 5 already. They are truly lagging behind Steemit! Eventually they will come. And as you said it will still be awesome for the users since competition is better than monopoly!
Just as you said bring value and your A game will be all! Whoever that brings the most value wins this game. But now when it comes to winning it will be about spreading that wealth back by sharing it with other hungry value givers. So we create a super effective positive feedback loop. Clearly we are building something but what we don't know yet. All we know is that it will be super powerful.