I’m currently using steem, more than facebook. Its really great idea. Steem have power to unseat the social media king facebook. Still lot lags when compared to facebook.
Blockchain is future, Like bitcoin (and alt coins) may make banks obsolete. Steem have the power to make social media companies obsolete. Its not easy but not impossible either.
Why we need Decentralised / open source Social media
Facebook is great. But it becoming very dangerous. It can influence billions of people for their own greedy. It makes money by selling our private data. In the age of facebook, its easy for corporate and government to influence and change peoples opinion. We unknowingly gave too much power to facebook. Its not good. Like we separated the state from church in many countries. Its very much important and urgent to separate the corporate and government from people. But still the community power is massive than facebook. Steem is good initiative but still long way to go.
Pros :
Already good engagement with some 10K+ people.
Rewarding the content creator and consumer with steem dollars is a great idea.
You own the data. And better privacy and ads free.
Code is fully opensource.
Decentralised.
Cons :
Lot of features missing. (likes, chats, pages, groups etc). Current app as mere discussion forum.
UI/UX is not so great.
Money reward alone not a great idea to keep the users engaged.
Things to do:
Copy all or at least most of the important features from facebook. Even copy the same design and colors. So migrated users wont feel anything different.
Easy migration tool from facebook.
More regulations to keep away the traders (buy and selling steem) who bring 0 or negative value to the steemit.
Reward the users who help switch their friends from facebook.
Build real community. Community is powerful than $350 billion corporate.
Branding and marketting.
Accessibility, from multiple devices and platforms.
More rewards for influencers, developers, contributors. and users help to switch their friends.