Thanks for your excellent comment, @dougbudlong.

I have four or five authors on autovote myself (20% of daily available VP) and I do not always manage to read all their posts. Mea culpa, mea culpa.

At the same time, I also benefit a trail but most of value I've gotten out of Steem has been the personal, off-chain interaction.

Your last paragraph is an interesting topic. A Guardian columnist recently wrote that most adults can not leave Facebook longer than 10 days, when they realize how hollow their lives have become.