A few things...
I think a lot of people will watch THIS video because the subject-matter is enticing. I don't think video length is a major issue. I think it is true to say that there are more votes than there are people consuming content.
A large portion votes are from bots. If you read my last post (as well as upvote it) you'll see that I use a bot to upvote. I also review posts I upvote however I'm not sure how many other bot owners do. Most bots don't visit the front end of Steemit to vote. What would be interesting would be to see a view count for posts. I'm convinced we'll find more upvotes than pagesviews on a lot of posts.
There are many layers to this. There are people upvoting for curation rewards only (its part of the game). There are people upvoting because they like the author however may not have time to read/ consume their content.
I'm sure the layers go deeper still... I wonder how many people comprehend what they read. I read somewhere that the average reader reads 200 wpm and has a comprehension of 60%. This was staggering me. It got me wondering how many people truly 'get' what is being communicated to them, when they do read it. I know I've read some posts (that I haven't voted on) and they've flown way over my head. And I consider myself reasonably intelligent.
Although it may sound semi-depressing I don't think it is. For me it's indicative of just how green the platform is. Despite the 100k accounts and 4k 'active' daily users, I think the real figures of 'true users' is actually much much smaller. There is still massive room for the platform to grow however there is a pressing need to make a push on user adoption and get more people using the site!
That's true. It's like the small town I grew up in... 500 people that all know one another. lol It has a lot of growing up to do, that's for sure.