an important distinction is that the people who work at twitter and instagram are not hardcore users themselves - they're going for whatever will pull in the most possible active users. That makes for algorithms that encourage the predictable and the bland.
The people who run Steemit are here, all around you. Most of the witnesses and developers run their own blogs here and have been joining in with conversations from the start.
More power to you!
Yes, very good point @lloyddavis I'm still not used to thinking of it that way, but it's true.
meep