I don't know a lot about it, but it seems to me things are going fairly well for a venue that's still pretty new and in Beta. That said, it's probably human users that will be responsible for bringing in more human users from "outside the tiny crypto bubble." And maybe the vehicle to accomplish that-- let's call it "siphoning off the most 'alternative' 1% from Facebook" (about 18 million people)-- needs to be incentivized, at least minimally.
If I write an article here and include a link in places I usually share such things, and 500 sets of eyeballs find their way to Steemit to read it... do I get some SP? Or something else? At the very least, some form of non-paid affiliation tracking (every user's name is already IN the post URL-- easy to track) so I at least know who becomes a Steemit user so I can go welcome them and connect to them.
PEOPLE build networks of people...