RE: Some pies for you on this fresh Monday morning
We're at a similar level, SP wise. I do vote up people above me, but I don't feel they need much from me, especially if they self vote. The growth of the 'bid bots' has skewed things more than ever. I hear that people mostly just make a few percent by buying votes, but the sellers really win every time. If users delegate to the bots to get a return then they can give even less with their own votes. I have delegated to one small bot that supports runners and I get about 1 steem a week from that.
I think it is harder for new users to build their accounts now. Part of the reason I delegate to lots of people is so they can support more of them. My votes are all manual, but my time is limited.
I'd prefer to see more manual voting based on real interaction, but many people will just play the system for profit. The freedom of Steem allows that.
Buyers gain little, but they are buying promotion, and so should they profit at all?
The delegators take the most. But would you rather have them doing a haejin, or letting them sell their vote? The other options include distributing their stake selflessly, or (and this is not implemented) locking it away from voting and 'earning' 8/9/10 self-votes a day.
Very much so, there is much less manual curation and the only way to grow at a reasonable pace is via contributing to an app I think.
I hope we will more ways for people to earn. Maybe someone could set up a microloans business, but that's a whole mess of legal to deal with. There are clever people who will come up with new ideas on here.
I've heard 'microloans' touted in the past actually, similar to what @neoxian has been doing for a long time now. There is certainly scope there for sure, and a site (like zopa.com) to help the loaners/loanee's organise this could see this as a growth area.