What limited resource is being depleted in this case? Good posts? Your time wasted reading bad posts?

The biggest problem with steamit is that it is not really customized to the individual. The closest it gets is through 'following' and viewing the 'feed'. If it were individualized, users could trust each other, creating networks of trust, similar to friends in facebook, and if my friends upvote, then I will see that content in my stream, and if they flag I will not likely see it. This allows users to pair up with other like minded steemers.