What makes you think the bottom will get rewarded with whale largess?
They haven't shown any altruistic tendencies that I am aware of.
They have consistently done the crapitalistic, ie, the rich getting richer, thing.
I like the n^2, I also like whales that don't eat all the food, of their own accord.
Why whales that considered the guilds a good idea would change that thinking when given the freedom 'to build the bottom' with sp delegation is beyond me.
A flatter community only dilutes the rewards, it gives a participation ribbon to everybody, hardly a crapitalistic ideal.
Why build the bottom when building the middle gives better rewards, and more control, all around?
The bottom is insignificant if you pick a couple winners from it and build them into sycophantic dolphins, then use them to herd the pack of lesser 'useless eaters'.
When the whale posts, to get even fatter/mitigate against inflationary losses, they are then assured of making the trending page no matter how fluffy the content, if for no other reason than loyalty to the hand that fed the sycophants. and ignorance of the dupes, that will upvote them, imo.
I do see steem continuing, but until the whales stop centrally controlling EVERYTHING I don't see it going mainstream, and it does appear to be that the plan is to keep the circle jerk small enough that a few at the top get their 'decent' compensation for their time, energy, and talents, while screwing everybody else.
This explains the lack of customer service from the top, they are serving their customers, and I ain't one of them, you may not be, either.