I know many if not most people on Hive are done with Steem and couldn't care less about it. And I feel ya - there is not much more to be said about a genuine and authentic future for Steem. But is that really all?
Far from the expectations of most, Steem has not tanked yet. Considering fundamentals the price of Steem has proved to be a sheer wonder of stability during and especially after the takeoer. You would think since the mass exodus happened and the vast majority of brainpower, heart, skills, apps and community have moved over to Hive that Steem would be done for, to tank below 5 cent because of its apparent lack of any substance just to evaporate into the nether of failed blockchain projects.
And yet, we see the opposite.
Despite all the above Steem is still not delisted from exchanges, is still hanging on to a price range of about 20 cent and... there are still signups, posts and comments. Every day.
I follow the statistics of @penguinpablo closely who does a regular compiling of the essential data, comparing both the Steem and the Hive blockchain. And you have to marvel to see just how much activity remains on Steem to this very day. In spite of all the discontuations of automation services and the shutdown of usability apps.
It's a sad sight to see as well: The more centralization progresses the more the bar is lowered in terms of quality.
Begging for upvotes and follows - once frowned upon by the community because it does not add any value to the community - is now commonplace on Steem.
Most of the quality posts that I see gather little to no serious upvotes whereas newcomers are outright bribed to have their creations be directed by what Stinc is commanding. People are lured into dramatic upvote support in adhering to the ridiculous "1000 days of Steem" which has turned into a "diary game" of laying open their complete customer behavior, favorite brands, shopping lists and consumer habits. People are promised upvotes for giving out all the data that companies used to pay large amounts for. Profiling wrapped in a "fun diary game". And oh boy, the newbies are just soooooooooooo thankful for an upvote by Sun and the gang, it's heartbreaking to see people lower their value in order to appeal to the king and his crownies.
I am not blaming the newbie for it, starting out on a platform like Steem or Hive is hard and we do want to make friends quickly by being polite. But as most here will know - a**kissing does not make one appear genuine but rather: complacent to the wrong people - out of ignorance.
At the same time we have an influx of accounts from South Korea appear on the scene, as well as new people from elsewhere who happen to hear about Steem and sign up in the hopes to earn some rewards. Most of them however seem painfully unaware of all the shenanigans that have gone down mere weeks ago, the thrust towards centralization, the voting cartel around Justin Sun and his "curation" accounts now feeding.
The network is steered into one direction, ever more every day and quality has gone away all but completely. And still, Steem is priced in higher since before the takeover started.
As it was expected, not only is there regular advertising on Steem as there has been since a year but guess what? #dlive is displaying ad banners on the left now. Talk about some bold sh**. And as you may have seen above, Justin Sun's Poloniex exchange is advertised on the bottom of the page. Whoopdidoo.
If you thought the death of quality would be the death of the platform you may have underestimated the gang and what their plans for Steem are. Of course the platform could still implode today and Sun could make off with all the money of those who invested since the takeover. But really: I don't think it's gonna happen anytime soon.
It would be AWESOME to hear if there are any targeted marketing campaigns in South Korea for signing up to Steem today. I wouldn't put it past the gang to make the platform accessible to many people just now stumbling into the crypto space who have "hopefully" missed all the centralization developments of recent months.
I don't want to say I expected this to happen but I can say what I find likely for the months going forward: Steem will overtake Hive in terms of price and despite all the glaring advantages of Hie in community, development and quality of content Steem will come out as a winner in the midtern, probably until it is crashed on purpose one day after enough poor devils have started to trust it again, never having heard about all the criminal developments.
I am happy to say I have hung on to most of my Steem stake until today because the writing was on the wall. Now that you can swap Steem for Hive at almost 1:1 ratio and I see major buy moves on Steem on the macro time frame I think someone has great plans for the platform and will not let their investment go to waste.
If you still have some of your steem laying around and are not in immediate need for cash: Consider hanging on to it a bit longer. Don't be surprised if some grand announcement is made in a few weeks, of Steem partnering with facebook or twitch or something. Not because it is the better product but precisely because it is the more centralized product.
Centralized entities and cartels - by definition - always stick together for their common goal...
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