You're going to hate me for this but, I think advertising is essential for this platform. Not the regular, "punch the monkey" type ads. But a business that wants to cater to steem users and become part of the overall steem ecosystem should be able to post and blog about what it has on offer for steemers.
Example, we are in the process of offering hosting & VPN/VPS services to steem users who can pay directly us directly in steem. Planning to roll that out in the next couple of days. I'd sure like to think that I'm not breaking the social contract here by said offering.
Another example is a friend of mine who just got started in the crypto scene and offers a whole array of clothes. We're in the process of figuring out how to integrate steem into her existing webstore then she plans to come and let everyone know she's accepting steem.
Things like that are going to help steem reach a broader audience on & offline. If you don't like the postings then you can always just not vote for them. But a business that made more money talking about their new product line than selling it? I'm kind of curious what happens when that day comes :D
Some interesting points. I don't think paying for things in Steem is an issue (far from it), but rather that being able to pay for posts to be more visible on Steemit would create a very different dynamic than the one that currently exists, which might not be a good thing. I agree with your last point though, that would be very interesting indeed!