My understanding is that the "authors" get paid for "upvotes", so yes, the users have to be signed in and click some button or something. New users get some free upvotes but apparently the idea is that eventually they'll need to pay (once the premine runs out?).
Nobody ever has to pay, at least not for many years when the business model could change. The upvotes don't "run out" (they do recharge if depleted by overuse over five days, at no cost).
Steemit is a blogging and discussion platform. The there are certainly low quality links to crap, and those should be evaluated on substance (or lack thereof), but most of the links are just links to people's biog posts or discussion, the same as medium, reddit, etc.
So the money is produced out of thin air? This is so much better then, especially with the self-voting:
https://steemit.com/money/@ubg/welcome-to-my-money-farmAs for quality - the garbage is what brought my attention to it, I didn't know anything about steem until I started seeing links to their "articles". I don't think I've seen anybody spamming their @medium links like that, or random noobs begging for upvotes on their reddit posts. Must have something to do with the financial incentive.
Sir, it seems to me that calling something a scam without supplying any evidence to back your words, is the actual scam.
You are implying dishonest intentions of other people while being quite ignorant.
Wasn't it promoted as "no premine" but the developers somehow ended up owning most of the coin supply?