Popularity is not that same as "quality". A voting system will always measure popularity (which is something that aggregates across voters) and not quality (which is something people will rarely entirely agree about).
If you want to reward quality the only way to do that is with non-aggregated rewards, meaning you decide what you think is quality and you reward it by tipping with your own money. You are perfectly able to do that now. Do more of it and you will attract more of the quality you seek.
that would actually be a cool idea to have your own tipping "unit", whatever amount that is for you personally, and then simply transfer it to the writer directly. Particularly once you had enough accumulated that each unit was relatively...insignificant (not the right word but you know what I mean). Might look to experiment and maybe write a piece about it. Thanks for the (now obvious) idea @smooth!
Agree with your points. Quality is impossible to define.
You say vote for what I think good quality is. The issue is the curation does not work that way. I get rewarded if I vote the way everyone else is voting. SO instead of voting for what I like, I should vote for what I think is popular.
I think this is not optimal and should be looked at. If I could actually vote for what I like and everyone else too, then I think the platform wold be much better.
@smooth can you please give me some feedback on the proposal I wrote and referenced above. It has a short summary that should allow you to make a judgment quickly. If you dislike it please let me know what? I am certain it is not a waste of your time.