They are some good thoughts @tarazkp... and, as you might have noticed over the last few days, more and more of the serious content creators and curators are starting to flag/downvote the worst of the spam.

The most significant thing I keep coming back to is "time horizon." I always looked at Steemit as a long-term gig... IN SPITE of a long history of seeing sites like this fail in fairly short order. Inevitably (it seems) we end up at the same place almost every time... what I would call a battle of "short term profiteers" vs. "long term builders."

I look at Steemit, and content, and the community... and think to myself "HOW do we build and nurture this, so we still have a place to publish 3, 5, 10 years from now?"

Experience from other venues tells me quality content, consistent community engagement and an "organic" membership build. You "sell" the site not as a "money maker" but as a publishing platform that happens to reward contributors. You advertise for content creators, not for people looking to make a fast buck.

The long term effect is not only a stronger community that's more engaged... but also something that looks attractive to investors which is a direct benefit to those early-adopter whales who hold HUGE stakes. Trust me, they would rather have $10 Steem in 2020 than 1c Steem in 2020.

Problem is... NOBODY is looking at a long-term plan here. Sure, there's a "Steemit Road Map" but I can't ever get more out of that than it's a bunch of "short term course corrections" without an actual long term destination. Where in the White Paper does it talk about "Steemit 2020?" Where does it talk about "Steemit 2025?" It doesn't.

Don't have any really good answers lined up here... but much of "what we need to do" is outlined in your post.