You raise very good points. I have found myself self-censoring simply because I don't want to cut into my potential audience or draw the ire of a whale.

That being said, I think that while people do censor themselves here, it seems to make Steemit far more pleasant than most other platforms. If you want to blast out highly opinionated content, there are plenty of other places to do it. Steemit is just more uplifting and people are nicer here.