SOCIAL MEDIA ISN'T HONEST THOUGH?
You might make good points in general (idk as I haven't actually had much time to be around and see the real fallout of these changes - the main reason I preferred steemit over youtube was that it supports small creators though so that seems like it is not a benefit anymore based on the thing of "posts that make under 20 steem before will make even less now" but I am yet to see how that plays out in reality) but conventional social media for the most part doesn't work, especially if it is a graph of honesty. Reddit is an exception, but most social media is terrible.

It's full of people either talking on a really shallow level or arguing and it certainly isn't honest (this is where reddit and steemit differ from other social media the most as people have indepth discussions on both that don't automatically become arguments instead - not saying arguments don't occur on these, they do, but it's at least possible and not rare to have discussions here on reddit without it being an argument instead). I've literally told people on facebook that something they are sharing is not factually true and they say that they don't care because they like the sentiment. To still share the factually incorrect thing anyway and say you are okay with spreading something that isn't true just because you like the sentiment isn't honest in any way and is just dumb honestly.

I don't think Steem has less honesty than other social media. As well as people sharing incorrect information or even harmful information at times on the others, people also share primarily the good parts of their lives and make it all look great. That's not honest.

CHANGES OPINION WITHOUT SEEING IT PLAY OUT YET
As for the changes, I personally am sad to see yet another platform make it harder for their smaller creators, but I haven't yet seen how that plays out either. I experienced being monetised on YouTube as a tiny channel and then having it taken away when the first adpocalypse happened and they set sub and view time counts to reach first before becoming monetised and it's cents lost but it feels terrible when platforms make changes that make it harder for small creators so the situation has to be pretty bad for me to agree with something that makes it harder for any creators, but especially small creators, regardless of whether I was a small creator or the biggest creator on the platform (as I care about the other creators too). And I don't feel that other people spamming or milking the system etc justifies making it harder for all the other small creators. To me that won't make me stop using the platform, but it is something I still think is just morally wrong.

I REALLY THINK THERE IS A LOGIC FLAW WITH THIS PART DUE TO THE EXISTENCE OF COOL UNPOPULAR THINGS AND POOR QUALITY POPULAR THINGS
"It can only be stuff that are so super interesting and so valuable, so much that they'd even transcend the most nitpicky bastards on the Internet."
I don't like this. I sometimes like things that are popular but I also sometimes like things that are unpopular. If I use an upvote, I want my upvote to reward what I like, even if it is unpopular with other people. Popular does not mean good. Popular also doesn't mean bad either. This is why people who decide whether to like or dislike something based only on its popularity (either sheep or hipsters depending on which stance they take) are being stupid. I downvote stuff that is just wrong like actual harmful content or scams because that stuff shouldn't be allowed to harm people but a dark souls style trending page is okay because it is trending but when this is combined with strongly reducing the rewards to small creators that may be unappreciated due their niche or sense of humour etc this is a bad thing. We don't want only the things that are interesting and valuable to the masses to be the rewarded, more visible things because the opinions of the masses can indicate quality but it doesn't necessarily and our upvotes should support the content we want to support, not what everyone else wants to support.

Your statement about the things that make it there being the most valuable just simply is a logic flaw though, as reality TV and Jake and Logan Paul are popular on other platforms and by the logic of your statement, that would mean reality TV and the Pauls (Logan Paul being the guy who filmed a dead body in the Japanese suicide forest and then put it on his channel for his young audience if you don't know who he is) are quality, valuable content but neither of those things are. Some things are popular because they are good quality, but not that is good quality is popular and not everything that is popular is good quality.

The main issue I see with these changes is the negative impacts on small or niche creators and the fact that what I think about certain content matters less than it used to (which actually just slightly pisses me off a little as I want to reward what I like, not feel like "it won't get enough upvotes, it's not worth upvoting as my vote will mean nothing") but I also feel people are falling into a trap of thinking that popular content automatically equals good content and unpopular content automatically equals bad content but those are only sometimes causally related (ie things can be popular due to being good quality or even not necessarily either good or bad quality but simply just an improvement in terms of quality on a similar thing, but things can also be popular despite not being good quality).