One problem with Steemit is that people are using it for completely different motivations. Some do serious writing, some are using it to post fairly irrelevant things about everyday life (e.g., "here's a picture of the stirfry dinner I cooked tonight"), some are paraphrasing articles appearing in high quality online magazines and regurgitating the info here with a reference link. A lot of those posts simply have no value. But if someone with high Steem reputation does it, they receive blockchain rewards.

This needs to be separated out. Facebook-type status posts should earn zero value. Otherwise, they dilute the value of the blockchain.

For serious writers, we need a different business model. All curation must be manual, involving an expert in the field reading the material and giving editing instructions. Software bots that autovote should be eliminated, because they allow low quality posts from high rep people to earn value, fraudulently. Perhaps it would be helpful to borrow from Wikipedia's business practice. Reputation should not be based on popularity, but by a more informed process. And reputation should be restricted to a particular area of interest. This would prevent high rep people from abusing their status and writing low quality material about things outside of their experience area.

Journalists take a long time to research a story, talk with people who can provide independent corroboration (witnesses, experts, others with first hand knowledge of the subject). An article is written and then an editor reviews it to determine business value and whether it is ready for publication. That activity is well informed and has business value. The farther we get away from that, perhaps posting something every 20 minutes, or not speaking with people who have first-hand knowledge of the subject, or not doing due diligence and reading other material written on the subject, or not spending the time to develop an expertise in the subject matter ... then far fewer rewards, if any, should be given for it.