EOS is discussing building alternatives to Steem. Which will be great to see what developments come from that. If Steem is going to compete and continue to thrive, it will need to provide more functionality to its users.
At present Steem encourages users to obtain its currency (Steem) in order to "power up", which increases our ability to distribute rewards. Outside of functions that any DPOS-style currency could perform, that's all that Steem does.
This utility needs to evolve if Steem is going to continue to thrive in the coming years.
What Steem needs is more utility beyond simply the ability to distribute more rewards share. What we need to do is create platforms that offer services that people can't get anywhere else, where they need Steem in order to access. At present, users don't need to obtain Steem in order to access the decentralized social media components. (I believe it should stay this way).
Opportunities
One way Steem can build in more functionality is to build in platforms that require Steem to interact, like decentralized marketplaces for goods. There are many projects that are building decentralized versions of AirBNB and other P2P platforms. However, they don't have the audience, or distribution of currency that Steem has. This provides Steem a powerful opportunity to build these platforms on top of the Steem Blockchain and require SBD or Steem in order to access them.
Steem: The largest blockchain media platform
Steems market dominance would be able to position it above any competing platforms as it's literally the largest block chain media organization. Steem would excell at advertising its new offerings and increase the demand and utility for Steem.
Steem needs to evolve beyond social media
Steems social media aspect is a powerful core feature. However, we can't let this be it. Is there anything in the works that I'm not aware of?
What are we building that is going to evolve Steem beyond social media?
How is Steem going to maintain its dominance?
I'm very concerned with the utter lack of updates from the Steem team and @ned. Other projects create yearly projections and weekly updates (at least monthly updates) which keeps everyone excited and on the same page. Frankly speaking, if I didn't already have an investment in Steem, I probably wouldn't invest currently.
I agree! I still believe Steem is one of the stronger projects (simply from user base). But, I have yet to invest more than my initial buy-in simply because I don't see the utility being strong enough thrive as a currency.
I'm recommend people join Steemit and blog, but I can't recommend putting any value into it unless it is sorted out.
I would address it myself if my stake was large enough. Which brings up a great point about how lacking the distribution model is for long term success.
Steem was an incredible trial run, but it needs to drastically evolve if it is to become anything more than a test.
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Agreed.