I think you're raising some valid concerns, but I think the root causes of the problem are the centralized SP distribution and the 'get rich quick' attitude you mentioned. That attitude seems to be held by a number of powerful SP holders and it has come through into both marketing and changes to the curation protocol. Despite that, I think the transparency of the blockchain system is causing enough pushback that we may see Steem grow healthier over time as the 'get rich quick' types get impatient and dump their SP.
While I don't wield anywhere near as much SP as @ranchorelaxo or @dtube, I have enough to speak from experience about some of the challenges of responsible curation. I see too much consistency as dangerous (look at @haejin for example). A person who can count on consistent upvotes is unaccountable, and guaranteed support or delegation like @haejin and @sweetsssj apparently have often leads to questionable behavior. Personally I don't upvote anything I haven't actually watched or read, and sometimes I have less time to spend curating than others. As long as Steem has a shortage of people with both the time and SP to curate effectively, rewards for a lot of content will be something of a lottery. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but I think we can support both models. There are a few people whose content I rarely skip over because I consistently appreciate it, and those people as a result get pretty consistent upvotes from me. I sometimes also give oversized upvotes to constructive but mediocre content because I think most of it is under-rewarded but I don't have time to read it all.
A week or two ago I caught myself stressing over hitting 100% vote power and letting it go to waste because I didn't have enough time to use it according to my responsible curation standards. That's ridiculous. My hope is that as the network grows SP will become more widely distributed and rewards will be less volatile because they're less dominated by the erratic behavior of a few large but sleep-deprived stakeholders. Steem is a great gateway into the larger decentralization movement and as such I think it's worth fighting for despite all its flaws, but it isn't worth that sort of stress and stressing about it is counterproductive to its survival anyway.
That makes sense about @haejin and @sweetsssj. Though I doubt many creators are looking for that level of payout. I am more concerned about really high quality content however. Like, I am consistent, and a lot of my videos take a while to write, but I am talking about super high qual content, like the type of stuff I used to do for YouTube. The 20 minute musical we wrote took an entire month to write, produce, create, edit etc. (Not to mention the entire day it would take to upload something like that on dtube!) We knew it would do well on YouTube because there is a healthy Hamilton following, and as I mentioned, we were also able to raise a little money on Patreon to offset the costs of the project, but I don't think dtube is at a place yet to be able to bring our Patreon audience there. I really think dtube needs more creative content though. I suppose I am willing to take a risk on at least one Steem specific project, even without guarantee of a payout, but I am not even sure it would be appreciated. Steemit has had a hard time busting out of its own bubble, but it needs to if it ever wants to grow. Ya know like people producing content that goes beyond cryptocurrency and Steemit itself :)
Someone said to me today when I thought about doing a DLive and making a cooking video I said to them, maybe I should do some preparation before I do it and mention a forthcoming date of when it would happen.
The response I got was along the lines of don't do it for the money, or the views or the audience do it because you want to do it.
I can kind of see both sides of the coin really of course i would love to do it, but what would be the point if there is no one watching me.
Am I being a little selfish saying this remark? I am not sure but certainly I can't see the point in being live if there is no one to watch???
I think "do it because you love to" is a dangerous territory, because as I said, it almost embodies the "make music because of the art, not to make money". That's nice and all in a world where people aren't having to work 3 jobs in the US just to stay fucking afloat. I thought that was the whole point of decentralization in the first place. Other users on here are pushing "Manna" coin which is basically the first of its kind Basic Income. You don't have to do anything but exist to get it. A lot of Libertarians back a universally basic income for all, and then anything above and beyond that you want to make, you can, but the idea that you can survive if you need to without having to absolutely bust ass. I am not sure how I feel about this, but I absolutely think that people should expect more from Steemit than what they get from other websites that don't pay them anything. That is the entire point of starting a crypto backed social media.
So in short, no, it's not selfish to want to actually be seen on a live post, and no it's not selfish to want to make a little money on a website that sets itself apart from other social medias as a place to make money. The long and short of it I suppose.