For STEEM to have any real world value, corporations will have to buy Steem Power or rent it to buy influence on the platform to promote themselves and their products in the real world.
This is where the money will come from, will they be upvoting like normal people? unlikely. This means that the people earning here will have to attract those with stake but for the most part, the mainstream crowd will not have bought in.
It will be decentralized authority rather than centralized authority who shape the content.
Yes, the mainstream crowd will not have much in the way of stake. Because that will probably be the case, they will not earn much, either, except for a few talented content creators. They will, however, be what attracts the corporations. There has to be something it it for them. If the opportunity to earn money will be limited with stiff competition, then it has to be the social interaction. Steemit, Inc is doing exactly the right thing by making sure the back end is capable of handling the onboarding of the masses and creating developer-friendly interface on top of the node interfaces. After that, it will be up to third parties to create all the sexy and snazzy front ends for the end user to fall in love with.
By the way, I think much of the confusion as to what Steem is at the moment is caused by the fact that all the potential use cases of Steem the blockchain are yet unknown.
Yeah, most will never know what is powering them.
Yep, as more are born, more will be born. It is the way I write too. :)