I'm not sure. Do these DeFi schemes involve currencies which cannot be cancelled or created in large amounts by political decision (e.g. democratic)? If the answer is "yes", then these may be just another form of pyramid scheme, perhaps less taxing on the environment.
That Steem example is interesting. I wonder what the basis for the voting system they have there, though.
Anyway, when you have a democratic (or otherwise subject to popular influence) institution which can do things like "print more money", forfeit some part of existing money, levy taxes etc. - then indeed it's an interesting and potentially positive-in-my-opinion cooperative pooling of resources. Of course then you have the opposite problem, which is the tyranny of the majority, but "you can't grab the rope at both ends".
