Hello @blocktrades. I focus on content production mainly, but use the stake I've earned to curate manually. I do not purchase votes, ever. With this approach I'm able to speak from experience.

Recently, my content earned enough to generate roughly 50 SP for curators within a seven day time period with about 1 post per day. With 23500SP, I'm able to curate manually without paying much attention to timing and earn around 50 SP in curation rewards. Basically I'm getting the full value of my content because I'm curating to make up for what I lose to curators.

What I see with 50/50: More people voting, which equals higher rewards on posts. So curators can take 50 percent and in some cases, due to more incoming votes, people coming out with higher rewards than before. Then if they're in the position someone like me is in, they can make up for the 50 percent loss by curating others and seeing a larger portion of curation reward flow in. I can see myself earning more with 50/50 simply because of the added incentive to vote. It seems like the 50/50 would create enough incentive to lead up to a positive feedback loop. Purely speculation of course.

If others wanted to be in my situation, they could simply power up their earnings like I did. The incentive is there, and that also contributes to this positive feedback loop I speak of.

I also have a link to share with you. I offer the perspective of a content producer who's been around for over two years, what struggles we face. Sometimes we don't have much of a voice here, but this is mine. Near the bottom I offer a possible solution to some of the chaos we're experiencing and a way to bring in new money to the platform, the smart way, using a proven business model with some added innovation. Power through it if you have time. I feel it's worth it.

https://steemit.com/steemit/@nonameslefttouse/turning-rage-into-the-soothing-steem-now-blowing-out-my-butt-as-i-mince-my-words-for-you-the-reader-of-this