I'm new to Steemit but an old time blogger - hell, I was one of the first 1000 podcasters in the country but I quit before it became big. The big issue seems to be that all this social stuff quit being social when it became so much dagblammed work. I recently self-destructed my two decade old wordpress blogs and I've let most of my social media go too - I thought maybe this was a place (ecosystem) where thoughts could fly and communities might develop - but if there is already a 'formula' then it just might be too late already.
Communities haven't even arrived yet (being able to follow tags, etc). I am sure that many of those that follow people just because they are often in hot/trending list are either bots or people that don't really understand the platform yet. This means that they won't be earning much curation rewards for a long time chasing those posts and instead it let's other curators who vote on less popular posts have a chance at earning.
Well, it's good to hear that the neighborhood hasn't gone to hell in a handbasket - yet.