Valid concerns, and I feel that some level 2 solutions need to be developed that place authors at the forefront of earning. Some already exist but I think they need to think deeply about issuing a new token and how to manage their economy so that it is somewhat decoupled from Steem. Thus authors could be earning from the Steem protocol plus one or more tokens - so long as those tokens are well-managed and hence have value, this would not be such a bad development; possibly confusing and complex but not in itself bad.