The first one is the growth rate. Presently, Steemit has ~43,331 registered accounts and has grown with ~10000 new accounts during the last week(an impressive ~31,25 %)
This is a misleading interpretation of the data, because you are not accounting for the abandonment (attrition) rate of new signups.
The data clearly shows that users active in the most recent 7 days are overall 15024 ÷ 43766 = 34% thus ~66% rate of attrition. I computed the attrition rate another way to be roughly 78% (which has now increased to (15,024 - 9479) ÷ (43,766 - 9479) = 84%!) before the recent surge of signups partially due to renewed+amplified coinmarketcap.com banner ad. Meaning that when the signup rate is significantly higher than the historic rate and the historic number of user accounts is small, then mathematically the attrition rate (in the first way I calculated it above, but not in the second way) will appear to be less than it actually is until that higher rate of signups is aged about 30 days.
I expected that my second method of computing the attrition rate would increase (as it did from 78% to 84%), because the attrition rate requires at least 30 days of history to compute accurately and the signup rate had surged in July. I expect the attrition rate to be about 87 - 94%, because this is the percentage of users who have balances less than $70. As you can see this correlates well with the attrition rate, because the entire motivation for joining Steem is to earn a lot of money. There are not other compelling reasons to be on the site. The white paper admits that quadratic vote power weighting algorithm is designed to fool users into overestimating their earning potential, so it is quite a “no brainer” to expect that most will become disappointed and quit (barring other compelling reasons for them to stay, which there are currently none other than some idealistic desire for blockchain and crypto-currency technology to gain a foothold with the masses).
This perspective is further supported by noticing from the data that the rate of attrition increases the lower the balance.
The attrition rate will approach 98% if the price declines by 90% (because that is the percentage of accounts which will have balances less than $70), which is what I expect for the coming implosion of Steem as the reality of the situation comes to roost and users power down in rush to the exits (most are powering up now because they don't realize the true situation).
Note I have confirmed some examples here and here of who and why users are abandoning Steem.
RE: An Unstoppable Force And First Compelling Mass Market Solution