I would think that seeing similar stuff to Reddit would be a good sign rather than a poor one, even if the repost-from-Reddit strategy isn't a good one for posters here. For example, I upvoted someone's post when the Nice terror attack broke out here, and on Reddit as well as news sites and Twitter it's widely being discussed. But I saw it here only on the "new" page, this morning when I woke up it was not trending or popular here, to my surprise. Most of the trending or popular topics were about Steem itself, or a set of niches that also seem to do well here.

That said, Reddit is itself a highly skewed demographic, the ideal for SteemIt would be to have a front page that truly represents interesting topics for the wider public (and perhaps a subreddit equivalent for those who wish to see only their own interests).