Thanks for posting but I disagree.

I suppose they have helped get rid of the $8000 post but actually a$500 curie post at $0.25 per Steem is still an 8k post at $4 Steem.
I think the big problem is that these are artificial programs, they are top down and fundamentally less sustainable than bottoms up. Before these curation guilds were targeting diverse content, categories like crypto currency news with a natural constituency with our user base were growing from the bottom up. They were sustainable until these top down methods sucked up all the rewards and tried to attract such diverse content that it appeals to no one. If something doesn't get many comments it's probably trending because someone was trying to earn curation rewards by front running whales, curie or author based bots.

Focused is better

I think the Steemtrails seems a much better solution through targeting categories. VIP tries to get activity. Maybe these general guilds had to happen first before the better focused version but I think Robin Hood and curie have contributed to the decline. Really they aren't much different than a website paying for polished articles of a bunch of random content. I guarantee such an unfocused website would never succeed. Focus is what is valuable, but it's a common mistake to go for breadth.