Yeah, I completely agree that I'd like to try ANYTHING other than pure linear. If I had to sum up what it feels like in one word it would be: STAGNANT. It doesn't feel like anything dynamic is going on. More like currency is just being mined irrespective of any "proof-of-brain" concept.
I also agree about whales. "Blame the rich" mentality is quick and easy, but rarely leads to productive discussions about optimal wealth distribution. You're spot on that there are few incentives to become a whale outside of altruism and perhaps a company combining many individuals' stakes to gain visibility on the platform.
Altruism, when it impoverishes oneself, tends to be draining and imbalanced. Of course some will always complain about "ninja-mined" stakes and who deserves what, but that is subjective and again, rarely leads to productive discussions.
I'm also very curious how these changes will affect vote-buying and bid-bots. At the very least, it should shake things up and force some adaptations which will hopefully make the platform feel less stagnant.
The thing about being rich, we want rich people to join our community to make our community much richer. I am definitely against the "blame the rich" ideology because we want the rich and the poor to both get richer. Everyone should feel like they have opportunities to get richer while having fun.
The issue I think with Steem is merely there was never enough opportunities. SMTs were promised, Oracles, communities, etc, which may have given people more ways to earn Steem and become whales (rich) in the correct way.
But to go pure linear and then also not have anything going on? To be honest playing DrugWars is more fun than posting on Steem at this time which is why I don't post as much. DrugWars might not be earning me anything at all but at least it's fun and feels like I'm earning something (gamification works!).
Vote buying made the whole thing pointless. Imagine if society were set up where you essentially have to buy your job. And the jobs are offered by a computer which takes digital currency and then hands out the jobs to all the people. In this we'd have the worst of communism and crony capitalism combined. In my opinion that is what we currently have on Steem.
The votes are essentially rigged by bots which sell rewards. How can it possibly get more broken than that?