This could actually be very good news. It felt like there was a massive influx of "newborn" trash-posters recently. Hundreds (thousands?) of new members posting one-liners, worthless links, gobbledy-gook, self promotional spam or outright stolen content. Steemit needs to adress this issue, because sifting through the "new" section has become a nightmare.
Maybe make signups invite-only for the time beeing? With limited invite codes for members?
Very good points stormbringer. I don't think Steemit will speak much about it just yet. If they were smart, they would take their user acquisition data to a real shark for a few hundred million to invest!