RE: Why distribution is important
Steem-UA is a wonderful example of a project the likes of which there should be more of. I'm not sure how higher curation rewards would impact the distribution of new STEEM minted. I think @tarazkp is on the right track when emphasizing the community aspect of Steem. Having a living community can help raise awareness and motivate people to act for the common good to a greater extent. Steem-UA rewards for engagement. Should there be a similar project for rewarding users for delegating to projects advancing the common good, complete with a high level of publicity for those who delegate the most - both in absolute terms and in terms of their relative stake? Maybe the social reward would help compensate for some of the financial loss suffered for delegating for unselfish reasons? The social reward may also lead to a higher financial reward. Also, having a strong network means that a user who faces financial hardship and is forced to power down and sell a part of their SP has a better chance of recovering it thanks to having a strong network.
I personally think Steem UA is a terrible project. It upvotes automatically no matter the content. It also rewards the highest SP holders the most. It doesn't reward for engagement, it rewards more for length of time on platform! Longer you've been here, the higher your rep is likely to be and the more Steem you will have earned, much easier to achieve 2 years ago than now. It also highly regards witnesses, some of whom don't engage at all directly.
As for some of the shitposts it upvotes. It simply depends on the depth of your SP, not the value and effort you apply.
Exactly, it only rewards ppl that came in 2016 the most. Just because they have more early followers. But it means nothing. It doesn't tell who is active today.
The 2016'ers should be rewarded for investing in the system early and not cashing out. Just like 2017'ers like myself expect a future reward for putting up with an immature system like this and even investing some money in it.