It's only been a couple of weeks since I joined Steemit. I therefore have a long way to go.
From what I have seen so far, this is a platform with great potential, but also with weaknesses and threats that could be exploited by a competitor.
Cryptocurrencies are not mainstream yet, so the Steemit concept of Social Network with rewards is not widely known . In addition, Steemit has been operating for just a couple of years , so it´s still in its first steps.
I think it´s important for us that Steemit become a reference. In next 5 years we will see cryptocurrencies grow and a good amount of projects involving blockchain technology will be developed.
If Steemit has a solid foundation and has worked in correcting its weaknesses, everything will be fine, but if not, probably another project using the same concept, will improve it, and become dominant.
It happened before. Do you remember the search engine Altavista? Now Google put the rules. And what about MySpace and Facebook?.
Being the first one it´s not a guarantee for leadership. Not fixing problems and weaknesses means others will put a better product on the market.
In this post I ´m going to make a brief summary of the weak points that I believe can be a threat for Steemit's expansion. The points that a hypothetical competitor could try to attack in order to create an improved version of this platform.
1- It´s difficult to understand
Steemit ecosystem is complex, and that´s its greatest threat IMO. It requires a long learning curve, there are complicated concepts, and not even a knowledge base or a tutorial system to help new members in this process. A new member needs to learn reading lots of posts, and many of them are not clear or didactical enough. That means many people will leave Steemit in the initial stage because they feel overwhelmed with so much new information.
A competitor would try to make first steps in the platform as simple as possible. More complex tools could be part of a later process. Simple understanding is essential to attract new members.
2-Content quality
Currently, I don´t feel Steemit is full of high quality content. The trends tab shows posts receiving more votes, but these votes are the result of personal affinity with the author or bots´action , not because its high value (at least not always). It´s not easy to evaluate the quality, but certainly it´s not impossible. Google already does it by applying in its algorithm what is called CTR (Click Through Rate), which is a way of measuring how much the content has satisfied the reader´s expectations.
An alternative to Steemit would implement a system to give more visibility to posts generating attention and human interaction. Just as Google evaluate the reader´s satisfaction measuring the time of stay in a page, an algorithm could be created to measure factors like time, human votes or comments. This would help the best authors to get more rewards.
3- Presence of bots
Let's be honest. Receiving votes from a bot produce income, but when you have worked hard creating a nice piece of writing, you prefer to receive votes and comments from real people. Checking your post and see bots comments instead of human interaction makes you feel alone. Just the opposite of what a social network should be.
A Steemit competitor would limit bots and encourage human interaction. Im sure this policy would result in an increased level of happiness between the community of users.
4-Interested relationships are encouraged
Since the voting power of a few members has a great impact , it is being favored that the little ones try to win the favor of the big ones. It does not matter if their content is interesting or not, I can see many posts where minnows comment with the sole intention of being noticed by a whale. This kind of relationships based on interest are never satisfactory for either party. People prefer to admire or to be admired in a genuine way.
A Steemit competitor would encourage other types of interactions, based on real affinity. Facebook already does something like this when it makes suggestions of friendship, so that having a system that proposes you to follow recognized authors that fit topics you are interested in, would help to build more genuine relationships between members.
5-Investing to grow is needed
Investing in bots or buying Steem Power is almost the only way to grow fast in Steemit. A social platform should have a different approach, with popularity not being measured by your economic efforts. If Steemit contribution is the creation of value through content, that should be the only thing its members should be focused, and enough to generate income quickly.
A hypothetical Steemit competitor will reward the good content instead the investment, because this way, good authors outside the platform would be encouraged to write on it and bring their community of followers with them. In this moment, an author with an e-mail list of 5000 subscribers has no advantage over a total newbie in writing. A competitor will try to attract good authors with a follower base because this way it will achieve a much faster growth of their community .
6-Too endogamic
Although building a community around Steemit it´s normal and legit, there are too much topics focused on the platform,while other interesting topic are ignored. This is connected in some way to the reward system and the lack of a method that helps newcomers to understand how it works. An author who could contribute with his great knowledge on a specific topic does not write about it because his/her profit is low, while we can see hundreds of posts (like this) focused in Steemit, how it works, its linked platforms, apps, bots, or events, receiving a great support (and money). This results in a predominance of these topics, what can be boring for the reader in the long term.
What would a potential competitor do? Like Facebook does, the key is exploring preferences and make post suggestions based on them. Facebook has proven this is an excellent strategy. They focus on collecting as much information as possible about the user and, later, they offer content that suits their preferences.
If you liked it, I invite you to follow me https://steemit.com/@xuancar
