Weren't able to use steem? Why do you say this? Am i missing something? I didn't see anything that made sense as a rational reason for simply cloning steem in a new language and with a new brand (and asking for 3 million and 7% of the stake up front to do it). In short...to me it seems like steem is being cloned and stake weight (aka vested interested in the chain) being ignored for another metric that can easily be gamed being put in place.
If this were actually Innovating I would be so pumped. I don't enjoy saying this, but instead I see this more as capitalizing on an early perception of uneven distribution + language barriers to co-opt steem and divide the community. I understand social networks largely up to this point have been somewhat geographically bound to a few locations (like fb not making it in china for instance), but this seems like a bit hamfisted attempt to either fix something (in the wrong way) or worse...a way to make lots of money while slapping those who powered up in the face, and the whales who powered down, but spent lots of money on building things for steem.
Like I said though...if there is information I am missing, I would love to be proven wrong.