I moved here from a big following on Instagram, mainly because I was sick of seeing an advertisement every third picture! My Facebook feed is similar and my business page is forced to pay money just to get my posts in front of people that have indicated that they want to see my posts in the first place.
Advertising is a disease that will spread once it gets any foothold. Censorship will become more prevalent when advertising works best on certain posts, which will favour fund generating material and silence those that can't turn a profit for corporations.
The day we see advertising on Steemit, that isn't part of the natural order of posting to a blog, will be to beginning of the end of this social media sanctuary.
The advantage the blokchcain has is that if Steemit does opt to go that route, anyone else can throw up an interface to access the same information that does not include advertising.
Unlike Facebook which monopolizes all data, on here, it is open. The interfaces are only a tool to access the blockchain.
It's an important issue, and one that seems impossible to resolve.
At some levels, all human communication can be seen as advertising. Discussing whether equal amounts of matter and antimatter were created when the universe began (if it began) can be considered advertising for one side or the other.
Defining advertising is therefore critical to deciding what advertising is acceptable.
I see a lot of posts that are advertising, in the widely acceptable definition. People advertise ICO's, cryptos, businesses, groups, and political positions constantly on Steemit.
A corporation is far more easily defined. However, telling a corporation from a person on Steemit is pretty much impossible. We can't even tell bots from people.
There are folks on Steemit that frankly state they are professional censors. @bloom's about me blurb states they are a 'paid flagger'. Questions on how to deal with such issues are bound to be difficult to answer in a way that doesn't prevent free speech.
I reckon free speech doesn't include paid speech, and that's where I'd draw the line, myself.