This my friend is an epic piece of realism!
The main point for me is that "we" need to find a way to attract content consumers without the monetary incentive. This is what I'm saying all the time. On every social media site there are only 5% people who are content producers, 5% people are able to write 1-2 sentences comments that make sense and 90% consumers, who are just passive consumers of content.
These 90% won't earn anything at all, but without them we are left with said circle-jerks and the 10% elite masturbators. This is not a business model, that is sustainable. That being said, I have no idea how to tackle this problem other than using different incentives for consumers, that are no based on money.