It is kind of cheap to advertise on steem. Any company that wants to let us know they exists can do what many other steem users. send .001 steem. basically a cpm of about 26-32 cents at the moment. That's quite a bargain in terms of marketing, and perhaps untapped opportunity for faucet referrals or targeted commission/affiliate sales. And our interests, beyond the obvious crypto, should be easy to identify, just look at what we normally tag. If business wanted to reach out to us and target our interest, it has always been pretty easy.
It would be nice if steem inc used better paying 3rd party DSPs as additional revenue streams [without getting into this steemit is not steem argument]. Even if at a minimum the fiat goes to steem inc, it should reduce the allegations of ninja mining/selling. Whether it reduces the ninja mining, or relieves anxiety that it is happening-it should be a good thing.
It would be nice if there was revenue sharing too, but I doubt it would be substantial for many of us. Ad revenue may not even be substantial for steem inc.
Advertising and marketing tools should have been seriously considered and developed a long time ago. But I think I read somewhere steem was running on crypto hype, rather than as a business. A successful development into advertising and gui design could have limited the rise of alternative steem platforms. The rise of the alternatives just stands to weaken potential ad revenue.