I agree. Undoubtedly, the number of active users determine the value of the currency.

This is why companies like Facebook and Google and Netflix all ploughed ahead, making no profits whatsoever in their formative stages, reinvesting all their resources to grow the number of active users, gain the network effect, and take an unassailable market lead. At that point, they monetized the numbers.

This is why bidbots are a bad idea, though, albeit I agree they are better than secret deals.

Since bidbots reapportion funds, from user base growth and retention, back to the holders of Steempower, active users are stagnated, borne out by statistics that show total active user numbers are no longer growing.

Since in a corrupt system, all parties tend to corruption, and the biggest losers are always the most altruistic, a Steemit solution requires altered algorithms, perhaps ones that reward curators more, as suggested by Luke Stokes, or maybe some other idea.

That said, another solution would be to give up on Steemit as a lost cause, allow it to stagnate, and go after new Steem users through the decoupled SMTs. That's where Ned is being really smart, because a better platform than Steemit can still be built on the Steem blockchain, through SMTs, even if Steemit itself ceases to grow.