As SteemIt currently is, I do believe that money is causing a lot of problems, BUT with clearly defined rules built in I feel that SteemIt could be a success.
For a start, there are simply too many bots which, of course, are automatic by nature. These cause no end of problems - even the friendly ones!
No one is leaving SteemIt to grow organically. Everyone has their own point of view and some try to enforce it, especially those with high 'reputation'...
For some reason arrogance on the platform is directly proportional to reputation score. I've only been on here for a few months and even I have had time to see people who were originally 'against the system' start to suck up to the higher reputation members in order to increase profits and their own reputation.
We even see groups ganging up on each other. For example, I don't know what @l0k1 did, but he was once one of the 'in' people. Now he is an outcast and all his posts are downvoted to oblivion - no more money for him. Don't get me wrong, I have no sympathy for him because of the way he conducts his arguments, but the justice metered out to him seems very arbitrary and using the platform to stop him earning is something I have not yet seen a proper argument for.
In my very first days here, I saw that people didn't want any criticism of SteemIt. Why? Because they had money invested in it.
Try criticizing Facebook on Facebook, YouTube on YouTube, etc.. It's not a problem to do so. Here people don't want to hear criticism, and that's the main problem.