Quality is subjective, yes, but that's exactly why curators (supposedly) have a brain - to make that subjective decision! Only upvoting already-popular content is exactly the behaviour HF21 (and Steem in general) is trying to avoid. Bots can do that. Bots WERE doing that. It's why #NewSteem happened, to fix this problem you're purposely exacerbating.
Hello @drutter, We will not stop supporting talented and creative folks on their initial days. We allocate separate VP which will continue to reward creators doing amazing job with the videos across multiple categories. Please understand that this is just an experiment to bring a little change in our strategy that could possibly attract outside viewership on 3Speak. We want to attract creators and investors both so that creators do not have to rely on limited VP of threespeak.