I think I am starting to see that much of the power and control of steem is in the hands of the few. Us small minnows sink getting cents per article. Yet someone with big power and bot army can milk the system for little effort.
One good point, it takes a while to cash out SP so if the bot herders do screw it all up then will have no real world value by the time they can cash out their SP
I agree, a problem with steemit is that, let's say, programmers, act in the same reputation system as girl who bake cakes or post pictures of flowers in their garden. That's not to say anthing against the latter two activities, but there's an issue similar to the Euro and the export strategies of Germany and Greece. The markets don't go together well. The effort vs. userbase/interest barrier difference is too high.
But tbh the cash incentive isn't so great anyway.
It remains to see if a good community of information can be established here. One would need a kind of StackOverflow in which casual info is allowed.