I actually quite agree with you that Steemit isn't prepared for a mass influx of users, because it would be a resource terribly wasted with the current retention rate.
SOC (SMTs, Oracles, and Communities) is being designed to fix the issues that drive retention, including stake-weighting, as well as for competition in the space. SMTs enable Steem to be the token monetizing content, ultimately adaptable to every conceivable form of platform.
Regarding HODLing Steem, it is the only token affixed to a social media platform, and has the best use case of any token I am aware of as a result. All other cryptos do not have any such mechanism driving the creation of a market for them, yet they seem to be retained by their HODLers.
I submit that the novel mechanism envisioned to incentivize HODLing Steem has proved both unnecessary, as other tokens are HODLed absent the mechanism, and counterproductive, as it inceitivizes profiteering rather than investment.
Most HODLers of Steem aren't seasoned investors. They haven't invested in, for exaqmple, a small business like a carpet cleaning service, which requires significant continuing input to generate the excellent returns a small business can, nor ordinary investment vehicles like stocks, dividend bearing or otherwise.
While I do not presume to know your personal history of investing, you seem not to be familiar with reasons to invest in a company, and it is a lack of familiarity with investing that leads to the position that being able to extract dividends from the rewards pool is the only reason to HODL Steem.
No other investment in the history of the world has been availed of said rewards, so no other investment has ever required such mechanism. Clearly we see that investment has occurred regardless.
The traditional mechanism that has incentivized investment, including all other cryptos to date, is capital gains. You buy a stock at a given price expecting the price of that stock to rise, producing a gain in capital when you sell the stock.
That is investing, because such HODLers are strongly incentivized to improve the company whose stock they hold, or add value, so that the price will rise.
Extracting rewards from the pool is a counterincentive to do this. It is the basis of profiteering, rather than investing, because profiteers, like vulture capitalists, try to extract maximum ROI as quickly as possible, including by selling the manufacturing tools used by the company they are extracting wealth from (in this case comparable to the author rewards that drive content creation).
Capital gains has proved to be an excellent incentive to drive investment, since before recorded history began. Profiteering has proved to destroy companies so afflicted, as Bain Capital, KKR, and their ilk have proved many times.
I completely disagree that every user would seek to maximize rewards from their clickfarms. Few users do this, here or elsewhere. Those that do aren't mere creators, but profiteers, here, on Insta, and everywhere else they can do so.
That is why clickbait exists, and also why it's reviled. It is the antithesis of good media, and what stake-weighting emphasizes most.
Rewards that aren't stake-weighted do incentivize organic and quality content far better than stake weighted votes, and most people produce content regardless of the rewards on other platforms.
Social media didn't arise because of rewards, but because people like to communicate. Rewarding that based on stake strongly incentivizes clickbaity posts. 1a1v does not.