This is a great article. I'm upvoting and sharing.
The likes vs views issue is an interesting one, and I've noticed it, too. People are trying to ride a wave and make a quick curation buck, and that's fine.
But your example actually happened to me recently with the YouTuber David Seaman. I wrote an article here on steemit about his career for the last 12 months. Occasionally, he and I go back and forth on Twitter, so I shared the link with him, which he shared it on Twitter, gab, and even on a recently YouTube video.
https://steemit.com/blog/@shayne/david-seaman-the-most-interesting-story-of-2016-17
The article has just under 90 likes but over 2000 views. I think that the more like this that steemit gets, the further it gets from the circle jerk and closer to relevancy.
Thanks for that, @shayne.
Your article is a pure example of the exact same thing. It's awesome to see another post bringing in a couple thousand views, and it's clear that in both scenarios, the views are likely coming from outside the Steemit community.
Keep up the great work. (Following you)