The problem is not with payouts exactly, its with Steem's beginnings and current state. Steem was 100% inflationary and suddenly dropped to 9.5%, which means the distribution is so terrible it would be more reasonable to go back to 100% inflation and drop 10% per year.
The way things went is not too different from other blockchains, but it is a real problem in the crypto space. Everyone is so greedy that everyone is trying to figure out how to be a tycoon of the future economy that they are destroying that future economy from the start. And this is evident to newcomers and its quite unappealing. Who wants to join a system designed to make only a very small percentage well off and everyone else terribly poor?
I'm for free markets, but France and nations all over the world are sick of the ridiculous disparity between the tiny percentage of wealthy individuals and the vast majority of people finding their middle class eroding. Sadly, very sadly, crypto is not even trying to do better, in fact, its trying to do worse.
The capped supply concept appeals to me too, but if right from the beginning one guy owns 7% of all the wealth there ever will be on the first blockchain, and the following blockchains assume 20% or more, many times 50%, we're doing much worse than the current system... We need to do better than that.
I'm not talking about socialism, just avoiding extreme aristocracies.