@stellabelle thank you for your support ! appreciate, and i Do agree, competition does improve as it tends to steemulate and gives tons of information. About Steemit features, it's actually designed to be a Reddit/Medium -like, and expect people to build on top of Steem blockchain different Decentralized App that could cover other niches like a Facebook, or other types of Apps. Means different apps that we all expect to be released very soon.
I do also think it pays in long-term being honest but somehow a closer look reveals that the worm is already in the fruit of this utopia. Most people are there because if the incentive, which means profit, gains, money. You can always use Steemit as a personal blog and not paying attention to other people payout and your own payout but it's not design for this. It's design to build competition and somehow can create frustration and make people stop using it.
But i totally agree your philosophy. Align your energy with expressing the truth, your truth, without adapting it to get upvotes, or the seduce the crowd, thats the deal which will define if you are pure author/Artist, or just a copycat product that tries to sell his self-eSTEEM for SBD.
Money does create short-term people but it also creates some lucky guys that are there to lock the secret and keep the trust at a maximum level for the minnows. But it always ends the same way: Frustration of a majority. Depending on which direction we will choose to adapt to these problems, Steem will be a success story or not
That's my opinion