"if the purpose is to make money, it's all just going to be capitalist bots and idiocracy."

I don't think this is necessarily true. Financial incentives are important for all digital currency platforms to work. In Bitcoin for example, the reason the system has worked for 7+ years with no major issues is because the miners are financially incentivized to maintain the security of the network and verify transactions. This keeps the whole thing running.

I think there's a similar dynamic going on in Steem -- whales holding Steem power and curating content is essential to the whole system working and financial incentive is imperative in motivating them to do so. The question imo is can we develop good bots, or will the whales ultimately recognize bots are bad for the value of their holdings and change their behavior.