Hehe, cool experiment.
A few of my thoughts on the current situation of steemit posts.
Let's say I am a user who used to browse facebook and youtube only, and have recently joined Steemit. I know for a fact that many of my friends who do the same have gotten tired of even trying to read those comments added to the facebook content or youtube videos, so it might just be a bad habit to most readers not to read the comments here or not even the full post just skim through the images.
As a long time Redditor, I loved reading the comments and the ability to vote and filter those out yourself too. I think Steemit needs to fix the incentive of users commenting quality responses and showing they have watched the content. Thus eliminating spambots (maybe not A.I bots...) and rewarding users by doing so without being afraid of losing Voting Power for it.
With the quality lately rising in content I am sure comments will be the next thing to improve, and I personally can't wait for that to happen. One thing I've learned from previous platforms is that even if the post isn't of too much quality or the trending one of the day, the comment section can be a place full of innovation, quality and entertainment just as much as reading blogposts.
Great points. Thanks for the input :)