Thanks for laying it out like this for us to contemplate. I have to say that I have never downvoted nor do I believe I ever will unless I find blatant hate speech. I am a big believer that short form content is the future. Instagram and twitter have been training people how to consume and share social media for a decade. We must embrace this. Long form content is dead and sites like Medium have bored users into making it irrelevant. We shouldn't chase that model.

I have no clue what the changes will bring only to say that human nature and greed will play a major role. I have always felt that whales always have the chance to grow the platform and protect their investment by giving out 100 1% randomly per day. That only takes up 1 of their valuable votes and changes things for planktons deciding whether or not steemit is worth their time. Those 1% votes would be game changers but the whales for the most part are too greedy and stupid to protect their wealth in this manner. I have high hopes but low expectations that a new form of circle jerking will develop.