However going off of your post, you have only looked at the economic model and neglected the social aspect of the platform
The economy has to work first. Otherwise to quote @dana-edwards elsewhere in this thread, "The ship sinks".
There are many different ways to work on social aspects, and many different sorts of social aspects that can find a niche. Facebook is very different from Twitter which is very different from Reddit which is very different from Steemit (which indeed may be very different from some future Steemit). These can all work.
Getting the economy to work is the first priority.
The economy needs to work, but it can be viewed in isolation without looking at the intrinsic value the platform creates. Steemit is more than just an economic system, what exactly that is, is up for interpretation. It is the first of its kind and the driving force for people to come to the platform is the idea of the economic incentive, but it is not necessarily the reason they stay, especially when seeing the incentives decrease as substantially as they have in 2018. The economy definitely needs amending, but so do many other aspects of this ecosystem
The economy still needs to work or the ship just sinks, at some point literally people can't afford to run the servers (not cheap), etc. It doesn't really matter what the motivations or intrinsic values are. The numbers need to work. (I'm not claiming we are anywhere near the point where servers would be turned off. We're not. But keeping tho ship afloat at a basic level is still always a consideration that trumps others.)