You raise some interesting questions.
It seems sad to me that Steemit seems to be so widely "gamed" and that content creators with quality input get overlooked. It would be good if better ways were developed to find and raise up and reward quality writers.
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I absolutely agree. More collaborative ways to create would be one way to go, I think. And if you have other ideas, please let me know :)
Sola tried to solve this by making upvotes (called endorsements) lead to more users seeing your post (card), but I'm not sure that works either. The cards with lots of endorsements overwhelm those just starting out, unless (like here on Steemit), a lot of persons have prioritised (= followed) you.
The solution, I think, will be to just keep 'sensitising' steemians on quality curating with posts like this until the tide turns.