All those companies spend lots of money on optimizing their compute infrastructure

Of course they do, but they are not buzzing about that, because it's not their selling point.

When you step into a plane, you expect it to fly.
As a customer, you care about the menu, legroom, snacks and similar trivia.

You don't really want to know that some piece in hydraulics system was recently modifyed, because you, as a customer have no clue what to do with such information.

Back to the marketing, there are two aproaches:

• there is no such thing as the objective quality and we will let "free market" of Steemit alone shape the content
• there is such thing as objective quality (measurable quality, Page Rank on Google, number of new users generated by that post, number of links leading to that post, number of users who joined because of that...)

If we continue with the approach No.1 - everything will be the same

Due to PoS, my vote = 0.10 $, even 100 "honest likes" can't provide decent support. Bid Bots will keep running perpetuum mobile (how to earn more Steem while the price is going down and they are basically losing) and the Trending page will chase away all decent people

Approach No.2: Be centralized, because it's already centralized due to PoS, but it's a taboo to say.

Decentralization + reason = utopia
Decentralization + PoS = greed, anarchy and chaos
Decentralization + PoS + whales with noble ideas = something that is worth reading

Do you want Steemit to be a blogging platform, platform that supports content creators?

Great, don't make the same mistake steemSTEM has done and believed (for no reason) that mindless steemians with no education will become master authors for popular science.

Approach to those who are the best. Objectively the best in their niche.

• the best photo gear blogger, Ken Rockwell
• the best history show, The Great War
• the best scientific debunking, Thunderf00t
• Why don't you offer decent rewards for GuruShots contest and take some of their customers? Or 500px, or deviant art, or... any platform that has some form of contests. It's such a simple thing to do. Free exposure, good content, simple as that

What is the problem to approach those authors/ teams/ companies with a simple contract/deal:
"Come to Steemit, advertise us, and we will give you a nice salary"

Steem is already produced. Every single day.
What is the point of giving it to those who create no measurable value to the platform? Ok, one month, 6 months, one year, 3 years...?!

You are right, it's pointless.

Use your position to redistribute the rewards to those who deserve.
If you generate more users and add some valuable content on Steemit - Steem will be more valuable
If you have niche bloggers, you will be able to sell some meaningful ads.

Marketing is simple, especially when you are printing the money