. If you're not paying for something, you're the actual merchandise that's getting transacted... I'd rather pay for a transparent service, which doesn't use my voting power abusively, and which gives me a lot more options.
QFT.
Not everything has to be free (which really means paid for out of the reward pool). One of the things about the steem system that really gives me pause as a businessperson is that no one really seems to have come up with a business model thats not "pay me with votes".
Which means that no one has really come up with a business model that can move money from outside the steem ecosystem, to inside the steem ecosystem.
I'd personally monetize the site with ads.. You'd expose users to the ads when they went to adjust settings.. Make them just a small part of the site and make money that way.