Interesting, thought provoking article! Particularly the argument about the monetary incentive on steemit reducing the likelihood of abuse. I think there are pros and cons to having a genuine economic incentive attached to posts: we're probably all well-versed in the positives here, but the negatives (IMHO) include a potential "chilling" effect on posts, where people are less likely to vocalise controversial or challenging opinions here than on, for example, reddit. This might lead to an even greater echo-chamber effect than we've seen on other user-content-based websites.
You also state that you think it will reduce "gaming" of the system, but I can't see why you'd think that. The incentives to game this system over non-economically driven sites is clear, and I believe could actually increase the likelihood of this happening...
I can't wait to see how the site develops over the coming years. It will be interesting to do a similar comparison to the one you've made in your post in a year or two.
I agree people will fear being downvoted but I believe the chilling effects of social pressure on sites like facebook is worse. The fact that steemit is open source and decentralised makes for an even playing field because the blockchain doesn't lie and the rules are known to all, the only way to cheat on steemit is to know something that others don't.