These two comments confirm in my mind what I've been sensing about Steemit:
This one from @ats-david (73) from four months ago:
Based on the many comments from Steemit, Inc. personnel over a period of many months now, development of Steemit.com seems to be an afterthought. They stated a few months back that Steemit.com will only be "just good enough." And recently on Steemit.chat, @sneak stated that backend development is the priority for the foreseeable future.
And this recent one from @liberosist (69) in his article How should Steemit Inc decentralize their stake?
Of course, Steemit Inc will continue to invest in initiatives like SteemFest, developing the Steem blockchain and Steemit.com, and hopefully soon, marketing.
As a social media platform and as a content creation/curation platform, Steemit needs a LOT of improvement. With a ~$300 Million stake Steemit Inc. really has no excuse for not hiring a small army of developers to make this thing work like a social media platform in its own right.
Many social media platforms with more work put into them have failed. Here are some of them, with at least one of the reasons they failed:
iTunes Ping - 1 million users to start with but failed to integrate with Facebook, cutting off Ping's access to the rest of the social web, possibly because FB didn't want to integrate with them.
Google+ - The rich kid who threw his own party to find out everyone is already partying with their real friends on Facebook, according to mylife.com.
Del.icio.us - Sold out to big corporations who were out of touch with online social behavior, relaunched site with broken tools.
Diaspora - Required people to install an app on their computer. People are too lazy for that.
Xanga - MySpace was just a cooler place to be.
Digg - News junkies will go wherever they can dig up quality info fast. Digg wasn't it.
Friendster - Didn't focus on social sharing and connection. MySpace and Facebook came along and provided a superior social experience.
And finally, MySpace. Who thought it would bite the dust? - It was overpowered by Facebook's innovation and more user friendly interface. Facebook simply provided a better social platform that appealed to a wider audience.
Do you see a little bit of Steemit in each of the above?
Who is at this moment secretly developing a better social media platform in alpha that will operate on a blockchain, with financial incentives, capitalizing on the meteoric rise of cryptocurrency? Who's the next Facebook about to unseat the early adopter/proof-of-concept we know as Steemit?
Steemit does have something the above failures didn't have, and that's the profit motive for users. But will that be enough to sustain it while Steemit Inc. shows a lackluster commitment to the quality of the social media platform, something that someone like me could realize after only a few days of use? Will it overcome the steep learning curve needed to figure out how to actually get paid for content?
Word of mouth and the potential to strike it rich, or even actually get paid for blogging, are enough to get a constant stream of people through the door to grow the members. Advertising for Steemit simply is not needed in the near future.
What is needed is to make Steemit a kickass content platform to retain those coming in the door and show investors that this isn't just an experiment, to get something out there that is, as Steemit founder @dan's personal mission statement puts it, providing "free market solutions to secure life, liberty, and property."
According to Dan Larimer's own words, when he approached @ned to join him in creating the Steem blockchain, he said, "I'd like to create a social media platform but my real vision is to build a smart media platform." In other words, Steemit was just one step to get somewhere else, and not the goal. The question then is, since @dan has gone on to bigger and better things does @ned and the rest of the Steemit Inc. team have a commitment to make Steemit a social media platform that has the best chance of surviving the crypto bubble burst or newcomers more focused on the social part of social media platform?
The sooner and better this free market experiment gets beyond beta the better it will be for all stakeholders, whether investors, content providers or curators. As stakeholders we should be voicing our expectations and not voting for any witness who doesn't share this commitment.
Speaking of witness votes, if you do have this commitment, let me know and you will get one of my 30 votes.
If you believe this post adds value to our community - don't just upvote it - re-steem it!
