Good write up. Here are my two cents. I've been here since December 2nd and I love it. I've totally neglected Twitter and can't remember the last time I logged onto Facebook. Here's the thing...when it comes to social media, a lot of it is driven by people perceiving it as being "cool." I think the thing with Steem is that MOST people outside of the crypto world haven't heard of it...and there are so many cryptos that even people within this space might not have heard about it.
With so many things out there to trade and invest in, you're going to have projects like Steem that fly under the radar. There are literally HUNDREDS of cryptos on CoinMarketCap and a lot of new investors are entering in the space for the first time.
Then there's the issue with traders. I'd wager that most traders aren't interested in a platform that they have to invest potentially months into to build a passive income. You can't ignore the number of people entering into this space who want to make money fast. When they come here and see they'll actually have to invest in quality content...you're going to get people who leave because they don't want to. They want something they can buy and hold for a few days, then sell and the Steem cryptocurrency isn't moving the ways others are, so people ignore it.
Someone else mentioned that Steem is kind of niche. I agree and disagree. I agree that the blogging component of Steemit is niche, but blogging is pretty huge. You have all sorts of people writing online on all sorts of topics. I think it's a visibility issue and yes that issue can be solved by marketing more heavily. I think (just my assumption) that the developers don't think Steemit is where it needs to be and there are still features they want to iron out before mass marketing the site.
A great site to compare us to is Medium. Medium has grown massively over the past year. According to SemRush, in November of 2016, Medium had under 700,000 organic searches on Google. A year later, they now have over 3.1 million searches and that number is rising. Medium spent like 3 years with under 1 million organic searches before exploding this year. So there is definitely a market for bloggers and writers, but it takes time to grow...even moreso for a blockchain-backed company than a regular corporate company built on a traditional website like Medium.
Will we ever reach Twitter or Facebook numbers? IDK, probably not. But I don't think we need that type of mass adoption for our currency to explode either. Steemit is not exactly targeting the same types of people who go to Facebook regularly. Not everyone can write long-form effectively, but that's good because that weeds out people who won't produce good content here and that's what we care about the most.
We also have D-Tube which appeals to a much larger group than simply bloggers. That appeals to a huge crowd of people on Youtube. But D-Tube has even more kinks to iron out than Steemit.
One last thing, I DO think there needs to be more of an effort made to get Steem/SBD on more exchanges. That's an early problem I've personally noticed. I don't have a Bittrex account and apparently, new signups have been disabled on Bittrex because so many people are trying to jump on the crypto bandwagon and their servers are overloaded. So I can't even offload the SBD I have accumulated. I'm going to try to use Blocktrades to send SBD to Binance, but I'll have to convert it to Litecoin first because Binance doesn't have Steem or SBD. I'll probably have to take a hit in value though. I'm going to test it tomorrow and see if it works. But I would like to see Steem/SBD on more exchanges. Binance has coins on its exchange that have ZERO value and little to no usage. I don't think having Steem/SBD on only two exchanges, one with wallet issues (Poloniex) and the other with technical issues (Bittrex), is a good idea. Having the tokens on more exchanges gives users more options.
Just my 2 cents.
EDIT:
I checked Steemit's organic traffic on SemRush and December has been our best month compared to any before and we're only halfway through it! We're currently sitting at 335,150 organic searches. That's pretty damn good if you ask me...I've seen MUCH worse. We're about where Medium was late 2014 - mid 2015. The most important thing is that we're growing and we're growing organically...not because of pump and dumps and Youtube hype. It might be another 2 years before we really explode, but the people who stick with it now will reap the rewards in the long run. There's a lot of great things going on here.
Solid comment. Earlier today, I got to wondering, "What does Steem offer that other platforms don't?" I really couldn't come up with anything that Steem does that you can't get off of other blogging or image sharing platforms. The Steem pitch often is, "You get paid to blog." But realistically, if Steem ever does make it into the big leagues, your average Facebook poster will make a pittance. It's easy to click "like" on a shitty dinner pic on Facebook. In reality, if Steem were swarmed with the number of users that we want, most people would get 100 upvotes on their dumb cat picture or "this is what I had for lunch" post, and all their upvoters would be holding like 3 steem power or something. So what does it get you? Will people find 100 upvotes + $0.03 worth of cryptocurrency more compelling than 150 facebook likes?
This question has been bothering me all day, but you mention Medium, which I'm sort of familiar with. I will read about their model tomorrow and ruminate on if Steem is superior.
Also, the OP for this thread is off the mark. He goes on and on about marketing, but ignores one of the foundational principles: the features --> benefits structure. Reread it and you'll see "decentralized blockchain," "fast confirmation times," "lots of capacity" these are all features, but I don't see any compelling benefit.
Thanks for a great comment that gives me something new to think about.
A solid point, and one I've often thought about.
I guess by that point steemit (or whatever site that runs on steem takes its place) will have to be as good as facebook, so that people will switch for other reasons: usability, aesthetics, etc.
Also, don't discount the fact that you're assuming all those people will register investment-less. But if steem becomes viable as a currency used in everyday life, you'd hold your "facebook" money in the same wallet you use to pay for your Starbucks, so why not use the same wallet to vote, or outright tip people? People pay for angry birds lives and stuff lol! They pay for digital gifts! People could load up their accounts to get the pleasure of giving people a few cents with every vote. It might become an addictive game-like experience for some.
So steem would be an aspect of their everyday financial life, and using it on a social app would just be icing on the cake.
Investors are not usually make-money-quick daytraders. Investors usually HODL. They don't have to produce quality content here. They can buy steem, convert to SP, and then delegate to some curation trail like steemSTEM or curie, and make passive income from the curation rewards in addition to the price of steem itself going up. If we include content creation, I've just listed 3 ways to make money here, and that's 2 more than with most other cryptocurrencies.
Bummer. I see you're sitting on 600 euro worth of SBD right now! Don't you know someone on steemit who has a bittrex account already and who you can trust to help you out? You could sent the SBD to them with no charge, they'll send it to their bittrex, exchange for bitcoin, then exchange for litecoin or something that has lower transfer fees, and then send to your litecoin or whatever wallet.
This is true, there are multiple ways to go about making passive income. Also, I'm not in a rush to offload my SBD. I'm hodling for the most part. I could use Blocktrades and send it directly to Coinbase, I'd convert to Litecoin first though. So it's not that much of an issue. I don't really like the exchanges. I see a lot of flaws in their systems.
That's why we need decentralized exchanges, not just decentralized currencies. Bitshares and etherdelta are decentralized exchanges, but not much volume there yet, and they have other faults too atm.
I have some Bitshares and I think they're headed in the right direction with a transparent group running it. I think the UI could be improved and made easier on the eyes, but I think they're cheap and undervalued right now...so a good buy.