I honestly don't believe in curation let alone "honest curation". This entire shitshow whales downvoting calling out bid-bots and tribe bots calling out honest curation on itself is just another way for them to maximize their own ROI. (just look at the numbers and you'll see how their ROI has skyrocketed after HF21)

The way it works in my view is that the platform allows you to find a select group of likeminded people you relate to and can reall connect with or ones where the content actually something that you dig. (In a way like youtube where quality has to be high). And you pretty much support those. Imagine steem being just a proof of stake algorithm. You stake coins and get part of the reward pool passively by default (while part of it goes to the SPS). You can use the upvote button which directly tips people from your wallet (buring 1 or 2% of the upvote just to avoid manipulation). This from how I see it right now would be a far greater model as it would kill the entire post2mine / upvote4upvote facade while give more reasons to really connect to people and form communities while the average post quality would skyrocket. It would also give more reasons to actually buy and power up Steem. The platfrom itself works pretty well and games like steemmonsters along with voting rights and the resource credit system would give steem value.