That's some food for tought. I noticed many people do "follow for follow, and vote for vote" and also many comments are not even related to the article. I try to follow only accounts i like and and the same for upvotes.
"when they find out who you know is more important", i can understand the relation with real life, but on steemit, i guess you're meaning about knowing whales or engaging in groups on steemit chat?
As far as getting to know how the platform works, i think it should be mandatory to read the FAQ first and answer a quizz/some questions before approval.
How would one know who to follow or who to like if you don't initially follow them to see what they offer? All the people on here it would be pretty hard to just happen upon a individual low on the totem pole enough without following them to make a determination. Some I clicked on their articles in the
beginning and choose to follow based on that one article and I haven't seen another thing from them
since. Others I stopped following because I seen to much of stuff I wasn't interested in, they were like those folks on FB you friend, they send you so much stuff you can't find your other friends anymore and others because they were like predators in the water looking for naive minnows to take advantage of, one in particular stands out writing about peace, joy and finding one's inner self and using Steemit to help the world prosper in, of all places, a world of anarchy, I guess I was temporarily blinded by his words of wisdom and that in a anarchist world vision it's every man for himself and he certainly proved that. Off the list he went. As far as your statement about a mandatory test to qualify one must ask themselves how many minnows does it take for a whale to grow, how many minnows does it take for them to sustain themselves, if every minnow was smart enough to out swim the whale the whale would starve.