I watched his video, and he explains he invested $500 in the post that is paying out $800 or so, so his return is actually pretty high, at least 60 percent. He also points out that he got a whale vote out of it (thejohalfiles) as well as hundreds of redfish.

On the minus side, he admits that his unboosted posts get very little traction, sometimes 93 cents, and this despite the fact that he has some 13,000 followers, and he himself admits that for a guy with 13,000 followers it doesn't seem like much of that translates to actual support.

Therefore, one can conclude that his boosted posts lead to temporary business success, but ultimate social failure. That is, the boosted posts add significantly to his bottom line, but the attention is fleeting, there is no traction, and few people become genuine friends.

This seems a sad use of a social network, in and of itself, but of course, the saddest thing is the hundreds of redfish voting for the post may then seek to emulate this "business success," only to experience the eventual humiliation of "social failure."

If Steemit's biggest winners aren't even fun to hang with, people will wonder whether that's a social network worth joining.

That cannot be good for a social network, where the epitome of "trending" success is to be a social failure paying for likes.

Concomitantly, folks who are genuinely likeable, potential social magnets for the blockchain as a whole, may never discovered by those poor redfish who wasted their votes on learning how to be rich and lonely.

I agree with you, meno, that the ultimate result of Joe's fleeting business success is to create an unappealing blockchain, with an unsexy trending page, that degrades Steemit and the price of Steem, by driving newbies away or at the least, teaching them how to drive others away. :0