I agree on both points.

If you have an upvote that is worth something then members take notice and are more likely to participate in your topics in hope of getting some upvotes back. It took me 100 days to pay back the borrowed Steem that Steemit gives to new users. To be fair for the first couple months I was just using this site for bounty blogs on crytpo.

The site itself certainly does have value on its own but the issue is ... We live in a Money precedes everything else world and when members come here for what ever reason they will eventually see those post with massive payouts and then look at their own post that can't break 10 cents and get frustrated and leave.