I will answer shortly but can develop if need.
We are definitely struggling financially, but that doesnt mean that we are not improving and updating our projects.
The real problem is most of devs are just sitting on a Steemit delegation and that comfort give them no more will to improve their existent project... So I definitely prefer my position... I'm having hard time (and my team too) to get my head off the sea, but that force me to work harder each day to find some ways to keep to do better day by day.

Innovation was never existent on Steem (at least to my eyes), most of apps are only some copies of existent mainstream apps (with 50x less features), while we have the power to make some real innovation, people prefer to assure their gain with some basic app...
For asksteem, I couldnt get my datas indexed on it, and today you have esteemsearch/surfer which is based on hivemind/elasticdb and free to use so it's not a waste at all.

I agree with some people who try to find solution to some issues, like the governance part, but I also agree with you about the "no sens" to trying to onboard users... While I say that, I don't blame them for what they do, and I just think that we are missing communication between the community (people with the will to improve the steem state) and some people with clear mind and who understand that blockchain.

I never trusted the Proof Of Brain, or not as a standalone. And in that way even before thinking about to build an app we have built the Proof of Merit which is a complementary overlay to PoB. Free to each team to dev their own layer, or to talk with us to implement the PoM. A simple thing about it, we dont try to abuse of the pool by anyway (like voting at 30minutes) or putting an alarm when we are at 100% to spend our votingpower, but mostly calculating each upvotes and trying to give only upvotes that will serve the whole community. How many team and apps can say that?

In my mind there is no difference between a bid bot and the system of dtube, which buy votes from users. You are talking about something but before that you should look at your home. And don't tell me that incentive have any proof of brain in it...

So I definitely trust that we can improve the mind of people if we give them better tools and if we educate them. And why not also improving the blockchain curation process. I don't see only one solution, but rather multiple ways to achieve that and make Steem the dream that we want to be true.
I worked with you for few months and I know how much you care about steem, as I do. So why not being an example for steem and starting to make something with dtube in that way? You have the potential to change things with your position as one of the most used dApps over whole blockchains.

But would you do it? :)