It's not the first time we've seen this, as you pointed out, yet people still don't learn. Kinda like with the market corrections and emotional decisions.

That's because most people still think in USD and on short term, rather than in STEEM (or in bitcoin) and on the long-term. But they are not the ones to show consistency during all these price swings.

That dollar sign in the payouts really confuses many people. Although new users automatically associate '$' with currency, while STU they might not, they most often think '$' means USD. I much prefer the way SteemPeak presents the rewards, even though STU is so volatile before payout, and its split into author and curation afterwards is again something a new author may not easily understand (seeing the author payout halved compared to what was displayed, after a payout at 50/50%).