This is a really outstanding post. Well written, interesting, fantastic choice of images, perfect formatting and it's multilingual. I'm really impressed.

About your predictions I say it is all possible. None of us have a crystal ball but you do create some vivid images and think of some interesting and intriguing possibilities.

I particularly like the idea of the reputation system becoming a kind of commodity in itself. I also agree that it will probably become more difficult to get noticed as the platform grows much like it is now on for example Youtube.

That said I think really high quality content if combined with persistence will still eventually break through.

Thanks for such a fantastic piece of work.