I believe Steem — and Steemit — is something visionary and amazing. But I also fear it has been sadly mismanaged... or perhaps just that too much energy has been directed in less than optimal ways.
I already left a long comment elsewhere about what I see as a problem of a "too much back end, not enough front end" orientation/culture here.
Let's forget about "blockchains" and "technology" and "apps" for a moment... and consider the reality that the history of business success tends to be one of something catching the imagination of end consumers and then technology and infrastructure trails that to adapt to and fulfill the market. If you think about it in everyday terms, the strategy of creating a "best selling product" before anyone actually can buy and use that product and start an avalanche of demand for it... doesn't make a lot of sense. Sure, there are gaming releases that are "best sellers" before anyone gets their mitts on them, but those come from organizations with a long history of stellar products... a track record. We have no track record here, so we have to bring that to the end user.
Answering the question "What makes Steem awesome?" with "I can create great apps and monetize them via the Steem blockchain!" is nice but only meaningful to 0.001% of the general population and won't do much to generate awareness and goodwill. And thus also won't do anything to address the issues you are bringing up here.
The closest thing we currently have to a "street level" answer to why Steem is awesome is the sadly neglected Steemit front end.... forget "getting paid to post" for a moment, and think instead of the easiest possible way for someone to get an introduction to cryptocurrency: "If you can use social media, you can get involved in crypto." And yet, nobody seems to be pushing that benefit anymore.
The other (hopefully!) thing we have is SteemMonsters... which is truly reaching beyond Steemit/Steem... and yet pulling people into the ecosystem. And, technically speaking, buying SteemMonsters packs is the closest we currently have to being able to buy Steem with a debit card. Given the enormous impact of MTG over the past couple of decades... SM could be MTG's crypto-based successor.
So... we're in desperate need of positive feedback over something everyday can experience.
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