Wow. There is a lot of good thoughts in there. I never really thought of it as a Google Ranking Improvement System. I can see your point and as part of a larger campaign, it makes sense. I look at it just as a blog, a small way to get a message out to the world in a public way. You make a great point, that people come with unreasonable high expectations, but it was sold with those expectations. Some of us do not consider self-promotion to be a important. We have have friends who brag about everything they do... even when it is not significant. And some of us have friends that just do it, and don't talk about it. Well We have always been able to "build a brand" or take any website of you tube channel and advertise ourself or create a brand. That was not new with Steemit and that was not how Steemit was sold. Steemit's Magic Mojo, was the free crypto money and the improved ranking that instant monetary feedback could provide. Steemit, is still an interesting platform or connecting, and the high google ranking might indicate there is still high quality content here. But it has been failing to deliver in my opinion.