Steemit is mathematically designed to collapse in on itself (yes, I've read the whitepaper). The only question is when and if you can maximize your income before new users realize they can't make any money without significant luck or gamble on large power up investment.

The entire premise around upvoting good content is BS. Whales are incentivized to self-vote so they can make 50% per year. Medium sized SP accounts post crappy content all day long to self-vote and churn their followers who upvote in the false hope that this medium sized account will reciprocate some upvote love. There are literally posts like a picture of Hitler's head on a toilet (from our own profitgenerator here), or the dude that posts "random stuff from my bar" several times a day and makes $ because of self-voting.

Gone are the days of earning several hundred $ for a good post unless you are really lucky, or are a whale and voting your or your friends' posts. There are a few personalities that will break through (like Jerry Banfield who brought over his Youtube and Udemy following) and can churn out a living while the steem price holds. But as soon as user attraction ticks up, because people can't earn rewards anymore with so much competition and so little real upvoting, then the whales start powering down, and then the price will collapse.

TLDR: Steemit will collapse, but in the meantime, you can churn out some money from unsuspecting new users buying steem to power up their accounts.