We can't really blame people for not understanding the relationship between steem, steemit inc and steemit the website. It takes quite a bit of time to do your research and understand what these elements.
Its part of the teething issues being in this unique situation being a blockchain/currency/dapp provider/social media.
Its clearly apparent now that the community needs to take over the social media and front end aspect and find away to get users off the reliance of steemit.com