pulling a figure out of my hat here...42 million Steem maybe.

Haha.

I don't need an algorithm to tell me who to trust or believe.

Exactly! That's great! This is exactly what I'm trying to tap into.
The reputation system I'm talking about needs to scale up using the personal opinions of the community.

If you trust me and I trust new users that you don't know about, an app can be developed that let's you expand your trust network without you having to interact with every single person on the platform.