Ultimately Steems value comes down to the value people place on it. Steemit is sort of the "ground floor" for the blockchain, but once Steem Media Tokens are a thing, expect there to be a massive shift in balance overall.

berniesanders is just pessimism porn really. The reward pool is always going to be raped as long as the reward for abusing the system is higher than not abusing the system. Steemfollowers is a great example where you gain more by not abusing the system, and more of these platforms will keep appearing for steem in the future, and the whole "rewardpoolrape" issue will be gone or greatly diminished.