A number of things came to mind as I read this... mostly triggering memories of "old debates" we have had here, sometimes ad nauseam.

As you say, a lot of Steem/Hive was never available as part of the rewards pool. Meanwhile, there have been numerous discussions about this almost-mythical "investor" that we allegedly need. Fine. For me, the misconception comes in the form of this idea that "an investor" is someone who might buy 1M Hive... and then use it in conjunction with creating content and curating to earn current income as their primary purpose for investing. I'm sorry, but in my experience with "investing" (which spans more than 30 years) the vast majority of investing does not work like that. "Investing" is pretty much what we already have happening when there are 150M Hive out there, as liquidity: Investors have bought it and are holding it, with an eye towards selling later, at a gain. It's what people do with stocks, it's what they do with bonds, it's what they do with real estate. People don't buy potato futures because they want to farm potatoes.

Short version, I think we often get in our own way by misdefining what "An Investor" is. Sure, there are a scattering of hands-on types like @theycallmedan out there, but they are exceptions.

The next thing that came to mind concerns the different definitions of quality.

Of course, I do believe that quality matters... BUT, let's look at it contextually.

The version of quality that attracts, draws in and inspires someone from the external world to make a Hive account and give content creation here a shot... is potentially different from the kind of quality that helps us retain people in the long run (likely a higher focus on engagement and interactivity)... which is potentially different from the sort of quality that appeals to those who are already here and committed to Hive.

One of the potential bridges in that context was talked about a long time ago by @surpassinggoogle with the notion of exploring the direction to make this place about The Internet of PEOPLE rather than just The Internet of THINGS and INFORMATION. Which — if you think about it — makes perfect sense for a venue that bills itself for social content creation.

The vast majority of the content I consume here is quite personal in nature... from many of your personal essays, to stories of people's daily lives, activities, dreams and plans around the world. Whereas they may have a place here, I don't come here to look at charts or learn to code or find instructions to install a carburetor. Hence the (somewhat uneasy) truism that "communities are built by PEOPLE, not by CODE."

A lot to think about, here! I will go check @azircon's post now...