In order to do that, I think SteemIt needs to market itself more as a "blogging platform" like Medium.com or WordPress, rather than as a "social network" like Facebook. I'm also active (at least I was, until I got here to SteemIt) on Minds.com, a similar crypto-social-network under active development, and the emphasis there at present is very much on being a replacement for Facebook. If you attract the FB crowd, you can expect to also attract the mentality that comes from the FB crowd, and there is a large majority there who would fit in nicely in the SteemIt "upvote-for-upvote" swamp and never get any further. I think you're spot on here @tcpolymath, attracting those who already produce good content, similar to DTube targeting quality YouTubers, is the way to move forward here.
Thanks for the follow, by the way.