You are asking some very complicated questions!

It is obvious that people pay for attention in most fields of life, whether from store clerks, doctors, lawyers, or T.V repairmen . To think that you can have more than a handful of true friends who care for you over and above, and whether, you are paying them is a delusion.

To do a cost/benefit analysis of whether there is a long term benefit to buying upvotes from bots is one way of approaching steemit I guess. But to then consider your "following" to have anything to do with the quality of your posts or your worth as a person - I guess that is a delusion that is peripherally touched upon as one of the nuances of the fairy tale that you cite.

I would guess that weavers live long and prosperous lives. Prophets and truth tellers are unwelcome in their own land. I have not much hope for humanity as a species. In fact, I would guess that there is an evolutionary discontinuity on the horizon which will leave most of it extinct.