I'm not sure whether dragging author rewards down for low value posts will help much, but we'll see.

But more importantly, that's quite a false dichotomy with "something vs nothing". Some people are fine with just the exposure and flow of likes on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Ego fodder has its value too, after all. On Youtube, deviantArt, Bitchute or Twitch you can actually make money quite directly. Add Patreon and its clones to the mix and suddenly getting 0.10$ worth in an exotic cryptocurrency does not sound as appealing as you seem to think, especially given that only the first week matters. Steem is far from being a God's gift at monetisation, sadly.