Agree I don't see Reddit doing this. While I'm spending more time on Steemit and actually prefer it to Reddit I'm still wrestling with the question of whether money and the ability to get money corrupts everything ie is Reddit a better place for consuming content because the focus is content and not monetary gain?
Have you heard about Minds or Gab? I think they are trying to copy Steemit, apparently minds has a way to earn I don't believe gab does.
Personally, while seeing the little dollar signs next to each paragraph might make us feel greedy, I really do think that having them is good for bringing in new people into the STEEM market. No Joe-shmoe is going to give a crap about the number of Steems he gets with his posts... until he adopts into the community. And by that time, he's hooked.
Even though content creators on Reddit are rewarded directly with karma only, you think there's no monetary rewards indirectly to be gained in getting your content to the "frontpage of the internet?"
I'm not saying there's no benefits but getting a meme to frontpage isn't gonna do much. If you can write a great post, provide a ton of value and subtly drop an affiliate link you can make a bit of money but honestly I don't see majority of the content being stuff that is monetized. I suppose growing your account allows you to have more reach but I don't see people making money off Reddit as easily or in the same ways as Steemit.