Even if the creators are completely above-board, the incentives could not be more perverse. The Internet doesn't need more low-quality content! What they are incentivizing is for 1000s of monkeys to churn out crowd-pleasing garbage like Buzzfeed. Jason Calacanis already tried that with Mahalo and it provided a lot of mediocre articles.

But beyond that, there is a really unpleasant vibe to the site. Like an Amway kind of feel, where a small number of people who got in early are exhorting new users "Don't give up. Stick with it! The money will come" and half of the articles are about steemit itself.

The idea is good, but the implementation seems sketchy.