Outranking the original content isn't always solved by canonicals, Google also looks at the domain authority and other metrics and the canonical is a suggestion. Why syndicated sites often do better is because they have a higher authority and the speed at which it loads is often superior to the independent site
While Canonicals could help, it's no guarantee the original source will always be credited higher. You will have to use your syndication as a click funnel. What many are doing is revamping their posts to be more high level with the original having more in-depth content.
It's more work but it also helps you build a click funnel and if you know how to structure content you can use the syndicated post for long-tail targetting while the main post goes for high volume keywords
As for the tribe outranking story, you also competing with busy and steempeak. In these cases You can add original post links in content but these social sites need to start building their own CRM tools to own their audiences
If steemit and the other apps could give us the tools to improve our own posts seo, it would aid steemit.com (and other front ends) massively.
I have been micro managing my seo this year( as much as you can micro manage something no one really understands), with great results. I have tried different things and watch what's working and not. The only change during this period was the change steemit inc made to the links. Yes I could be wrong but it's a bit of a coincidence dont you think.
I post to my site first, delayed uptown a week on steem. I also request indexing on Google search console once I post it. I did think once mine was date stamped it's obvious. But I have been advised that most often a stronger domain authority with these link types will win over a date stamp. It's very confusing.
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