I think your on the money there. Steemit is a great place to experiment a bit more outside ones comfort zone to get real feedback. On Instagram if I post something outside of my normal theme the first few people like it a little less as it's not what they expect and then it gets crimped by the algorithm so that no one ends up seeing it. I range from from a reach of 25,000k people down to 6,000 people depending on the shot. So people feeds become narrower, and they end up being shown almost the same thing over and over again as the likes are self reinforcing. This is the main problem with algorithm based social media as it is self reinforcing of a given style or ideology. Chronological media on the other hand shows you everything in your feed; so the apparent quality might be slightly down, but you see things that would otherwise be screened out, and occasionally you see things that come from a different perspective that broaden your mindset and might just change your world view slightly. I think appics will be more of a direct IG copy when it comes out and complement steemit