I wonder if there's something we could do the flip the equation. Steemit already provides rewards for upvoting other people's content, so I don't think it's the monetary aspect. It's got to be either cultural or ease-of-use.

From my perspective, I struggle to find content that is interesting to me. I think part of that is my own ignorance of how to use the search feature on the feed, another part is the limited tags we are allowed, and the third part is that there really is a lot of content that is poorly executed. I get discouraged after clicking on 15 posts in a row that are little more than "here's a not that great picture - upvote me."

The other thing to consider is the culture of steem. It seems like the vast majority of the folks on here are primarily interested in growing wealth, or growing the steem community (ergo growing wealth philanthropy). It's quite different from the users on other sites like Facebook.

I too have Facebook, but I rarely post there. Fun fact: I've posted more links to my steemit blog in two months than I've posted anything in the past 2 years. I use Facebook primarily to see what my friends and family are up to, or what is a hot topic in the news, or catch the latest silly video. In other words, I am a consumer on other sites and more of a producer on steemit. I think it is similar for many people here.

If we could somehow adjust that balance to increase the demand for quality content, I think the authenticity of interaction would increase and with it, people's monetary rewards would also increase.