The current distribution of "free" Steem (via voting/ curation) isn't conducive of a healthy or sustainable economy -- if things keep going as they are, it seems to me that it MUST, eventually, collapse.
Why buy into a currency in which 95% of it funnels to roughly 5% of the active participants (this isn't an actual stat, just the apparent state of things on Steemit)?
So we don't buy and we feel pressure to immediately sell any Steem that we happen upon. Most everyone fears drowning in the massive waves of whale dilution, most of which goes into the pockets of a select few. It just feels rigged. Whether it really is or not doesn't really matter as far as the life of this project is concerned.
If we want this to succeed then we're going to do it by reaching consensus on what makes distribution "fair" and, therefore, Steem an attractive, at least potentially stable, currency. That could even mean that the best writers/ contributors won't always be "eligible" for top-trending type of payouts!
The system has to appeal to the mean (as in, average), before the "average type" will buy in. For starters, those type of videos on YouTube and those "blog-type" posts on Facebook and Reddit that get the most thumbs up/ up-votes are the kind of posts that should be dominating the front page of Steemit. As it stands, a few whales who're into a narrow set of, let's say, "niches", are determining where the bulk of the currency is getting distributed -- to about 5% of the participants (again, not a fact, but the apparent situation) -- and when they fail to keep the same ten users in the top 10 trending spots, the bots are there to pick it up for them.
This system is perfect for the select few whom appeal to the whale's seemingly narrow tastes -- or happen to be friends, relatives, or sock-puppets, but we can save that discussion for another time. The problem for the majority is that those tastes aren't anywhere near representative of the public opinion; hence, it looks/ feels rigged.