I believe in Steemit as a gift economy... and I read @stellabelle's original post on the topic, when it was first published, and it resonated with me.

I guess we have a choice of who to follow... I am a 100% "manual" follower/curator/commenter and I tend to follow people who are the same. By snowflake's metric, I would not be maximizing my return... but I believe I am, because by creating interesting content and interactions, I am helping build the long term attrativeness of Steemit, which in turn would increase the value of the Steem token... but that's a LONG TERM approach.

I DO care about "making money" but I view that in the greater conext of not just "now," but whether I will still be able to get rewarded for contributing on Steemit next year, two years, five years from now.