Hi @themarkymark,
In general, almost everything that is blogged on the internet could be chalked up as superficial, rather average to low quality, under banality and triviality. Real quality can probably only be found among book authors, reporters (who have time for physical research, interviews, etc.), artists who do not only make virtual art, and among all those who still have a real connection to their online existence (handicrafts, gardening, etc. etc.).
Where only online "values" are created for the sake of online production, we get into consumerism, similar to cheap products that are only made to break quickly so that new ones are bought. So it's not just the vicious downvotes you're talking about that are rare, it's probably any form of special quality.
People have become free riders, they take content from other internet content. Something you get into the habit of doing without realising it. The whole thing started in the television era and has now taken on a life of its own. Almost everything is either of low quality - even extensive and text-heavy blogs are not synonymous with excellence, you can have just as much junk spread over very many, as over very few lines.
The point is this: If everyone can read, write and publish, then everyone will.
This platform also thrives on the trivial and banal, like so many others. It's futile to try to control that, where all the functions and features exist, that as many as possible participate who simply have zero interest in running something of good value, high quality and extensive research, but above all through a sluice where someone well-meaning criticises the material to be published and advises you on what you could do better.
Today, this is picked up "on the go", so to speak, and the comments are the guide for any corrections or changes in the future that a blogger may (or may not) pick up on.
Instead of exchanging opinions about the content, offering constructive criticism to the blogger would be much more valuable, I think. But "opinion" is the sacred cow of the present. I tried that and did particularly badly with it, because the recipients of constructive criticism again mistook it for opinion, without realising that you were trying to give them something that might enhance their content - the one exception was the "finishthestory" community, where this worked pretty well.
I myself miss such criticism on my content as well and so this is not a space where you can develop very much personally, except in exchanging opinions and arguments about those opinions.
This led me to take that whole thing here not too seriously. I guess my own content lacks from then on quality, for I lowered my standard, compared to my beginning times on Steemit. ... I don't know. I'ts difficult sometimes to judge my own stuff.