@markkujantunen pretty much nailed it. The priority right now isn't meaningfully paying a broad swath of content creators for content alone. That is an impossible and unaffordable luxury given Steem's precarious position. It is trying to maximize impact with what little budget we have now (in the manner I described above), and slow or ideally reverse the plummeting token price.

Until then, please consider prioritizing what you can do to help increase the value of your Steem investment, and not treating Steem like an ATM for the tiny pittance it can add to your youtube, etc. earnings, downvotes or no downvotes.