Obviously you are one of Steemit's die-hards who have closed their eyes to reality.
Who knows what your sense of reality is. (The fact that you use Steemit and Steem interchangeably reveals that you might have some catching up to do as to developments in the last couple of years.)
"Yet, it has delivered $100 million dollars worth of author rewards in the four years or so it has existed."
Perhaps, but to whom? The answer is simple: To a very select few at the top, at the expense of the many who have joined and ended up leaving the platform over the years after seeing the very poor way it is run.
In the beginning, all STEEM was held by the early miners. Now it is held by a much larger group. Are you saying most of those people brought their STEEM with them? I doubt it. Most people left because they didn't consider the dollar value of their earnings from the reward pool made up of newly minted STEEM worth their while.
"If Steem is going to die, it may do so because it being TOO generous."
I honestly hope that you do not believe what you are saying. If you do, then I'm afraid that you have a very warped sense of fairness.
A communist might say that. Do you seriously believe anyone would power up STEEM if it weren't possible to earn curation rewards commensurate to the Steem Power you hold? Why would you lock up your coins for thirteen weeks if it didn't help you earn more?
I know very well that before Hard Fork 21 one group that made a lot of STEEM was bid bot owners and users, which still spread stake into a larger number of hands but didn't help create much value in terms of content.
That problem, however, was fixed about five months ago. Since then, bid bots have become curation projects.
I've seen them dole out very large quantities of large upvotes for free to many authors among those I follow who used to create quality content but didn't get much in the way of rewards earlier.
You may think you have all the answers, and are part of the solution, but on the contrary, you are a big part of the problem why Steemit is in such a rapid decline.
It is not in rapid decline in terms of usage, development or even price action. The decline has leveled off by now. Don't believe me?
Check out @penguinpablo's stats:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@penguinpablo/daily-steem-stats-report-wednesday-january-29-2020
Some usage stats from the last six months:
Price action in the last six months:
Clearly, the decline seen in the last six months has leveled off.
All you are doing, is helping to run an illegal ponzi scheme...a scheme that will soon end.
You're deluded. A Ponzi scheme is one where people recruit new people and the profits of the earlier arrivals are paid out of the pockets of those who join later. Stake on Steem, however, has been spreading into new hands all along. Its external price is ultimately dictated by mostly Korean altcoin speculators who are willing to dump money on any coin they deem as having upside potential. Sell volume is provided largely by Steemit, Inc.
The overall altcoin market is heavily influenced by the price action of Bitcoin. The price of STEEM results from speculative trading, not poor little Steem users bamboozled into purchasing STEEM at a high price from the big shots. How do I know this? That's because most of the trading volume comes from Korean exchanges whereas only a minority of Steemians are Korean.
Good luck selling at the bottom. I'm going to wait until the effects of the upcoming Bitcoin mining reward halving in May have fully kicked in and when speculators start dumping their profits from Bitcoin into altcoins. But I'm not you and I don't know your situation. You do as you see fit based on your own understanding of things.
[Edit: I checked out your profile on Steemit and noticed your account was created in November 2019. If this is your primary account, you must be a newbie, and your lack of perspective is understandable. If that is the case, I'll take back some of my earlier harsh words.]