I think you make some valid points.  SteemIt is a distribution tool for Steem.  It is currently being used in many ways, but rewarding the highest quality work by Authors isn't one of them.  It can still be a great tool for those who are working on building an audience and those who want to fund another element of their writing.
If you see nothing of value here, I think it is a perfect decision to quit before you get started.

After reading some of your content, I advise to post it on D.Tube. The bots are still an issue but there is a dedicated curation team which will upvote good content in a video format. I do feel your content is solid so I'll leave that to you.

To add, I feel that the way Steem uses investment of votes as a method of valuing content, is not a great one as I could post a picture of a glass of Coca Cola and with enough investment, get onto Trending as you've mentioned. This is clearly not an indicator of good content but rather an indicator of investment backing. I don't know the answer to this issue but it's clearly not a good idea for Steem to be promoting content via by investment but rather the actual quality content. 

Give D.Tube a try with an introduction with yourself, a well made video which you would be happy to give to absolute strangers on the street and hopefully the curation team notices you. The curation team checks for bots.

yeah. I'm sure you checked https://steemwhales.com 
For anyone else that hasn't, please understand that 2% of users (bots) on this website own 95% of the wealth.
thats the economy of a failed state, or a robotic-shitpost dystopia. not a revolutionary social media platform.

Complete BS... You can blog on your own website and earn by ad revenue and all that shit, and still keep posting the same content on _steemit_ and earn additional money and additional exposure... Blogging in _Steemit_ wont stop you in any way to continue doing all the stuff you where doing before joining here... Seems to me like you are complaining because you are not getting as much money as quick as you wanted...
As for my self, i will always prefer a blog where i don't get exposed to shitty ads all over the place... And community here is way nicer than in any other blog...

Although I agree with what you wrote, please consider these:

Paying bots for the promotion of your work is not ilegal or immoral. It's simple advertisement, which everyone does for more exposure. It doesn't reward effort, that is true, but it's not wrong either if some are willing to pay money for more exposure.

What haejin is doing is NOT about paying bots. He has an alt-account from which he games the system. He paid a lot for it to get so much voting power, that is true, and now cashes in on his investment by abusing this loophole in the system. 

What is actually harmful is how his tactics are ruinning the credibility of the platform with literally worthless content at the top of the trends. 

I personally never paid a cent for buying steem. I slowly get rewards by simply reposting my topics from elsewhere (which never got any monetary rewards there), so even if I get a cent, it's still more than I was making on the other platform. I am not losing something by not paying bots, and I am gaining something by being active.

What I am basically saying, is that Steemit is fine for sharing content and bots are not its biggest problem. Self votes are.

This is by far the most eloquent description of Steemit I've read so far. I'm a content creator. I've done my experiments as well. I've posted content where I didn't use bots and it sank to the bottom of the heap. I've had some luck where my content broke the top 15 on the trending page with the use of bid bots but eventually started losing a lot of money using them. Bots are the least of the problems in this platform - the circle voting between whales are an even bigger issue. 

I don't know how long I'm going to stay but if my account isn't gaining any sustained growth proportional to the amount of time I dedicate on Steemit, I'm also going to withdraw.

>Of the top Steem power holders, the vast majority are bots or the Steem team itself. 

i did not know this!!! This explains a LOT!

I think your comment is driving a bit more traffic to your profile

You all correctly say, but you should agree that analysis from this narrow - eyed-SHIT!!!!!!!!!

Hi @swinn, thank you for your interesting analyses of the current situation on steemit. It is pretty much that what is hapenning here right now. I total agree. Im having the same issue with the contents that i want to post. I am not comfortable with the idea of spend a lot of time and effort to post contents that it won't fairly pays out my work. Is like, in the society that we know,  greed start to take over. You are right, the current Steem power holders are bots and the Steem team itself, wich, in my opinion is doing a very bad job (Steem team). I am not happy. And my votes will change. Or I will move at any opportunity that might apear in the future. Yes, I am talking about of Dan Larimer and IOS. 

Any way, for now i m glad having people like you and @coldbolt talking about important issue and creating value to the community. Following both for more. Cheers