To be clear on this my proposal was never to "Dump Steemit". It was for Steemit Inc. to (via an orderly sunset process) stop operating an expensive UI and free node service (something no other blockchain developer does to my knowledge). There are numerous other UIs which access the same Steem-based social platform including eSteem, Partiko, steempeak, etc.,etc. Some of these also operate their own nodes and appear to be doing so less expensively than Steemit Inc.
The original steemit.com UI is already only about 50% of the usage and that is dropping (pretty much expected since it isn't being developed and improved and the others are). As far the actual steemit.com domain they can either offer a contract for someone else to take it over (possibly merge it into one of the other apps) or turn it into a lighter-weight, lower cost, and less distracting to operate site with just a wallet and a directory of UIs to access the social blockchain apps (or some combination).
This has no impact on your 4000 followers and in fact might help them grow faster.
Being clear is something everyone needs to be working on, including me.
Several UIs all performing the same functions. Will that be cheaper than one solid UI performing those functions? Probably not. If we're talking saving resources, I'd suggest everyone get on the same page. Too many cooks in the kitchen right now. In the long run it would be cheaper to pool those resources... but that's just how I see it, which is usually the opposite of everyone else. If one of those UIs fails, due to competition from another UI doing nearly the same thing, that's yet another unnecessary blemish. I'd go the other way. Put all of these resources going into several UIs all performing the same function, hand Steemit over to them so they can work together and reach that common goal, while Ned and crew do their thing behind the scenes. Google has Youtube. They don't have Youtube, Themtube, Theirtube, Thosetubes, all showing the same content for a reason.
Anyway. It's hard to work here with so much confusion. My business is almost starting to depend on confused and disorganized folks getting their shit together. It's hard to run a shop in a mall when the mall employees are having problems managing the mall and communicating the issues.
I spoke with Ned, here and left feeling at least somewhat confident again. So much has changed now in three weeks and he gave me a damn good reason to have trust issues after hitting the mute button, but I'm not pouting about that, it just doesn't help things. All I truly want to do is carry on, business as usual, instead of rambling like this.
I don't agree they are doing that. There are significant differences and they are all trying different approaches. Not only in terms of features and UI but also on the question of how to how to optimize and manage costs.
Steemit seems to have no unique advantage whatsoever in this area.
I know it's not all the same. I was oversimplifying. I've been thinking about all this for awhile. Came to the realization there's still far more to look forward to, these bumps in the road are nothing new, some things sink, some swim. The majority wants the best, this loud minority pulling the soap opera drama stuff is nothing new and usually fizzles out; just a distraction for now. Seen it all before.
It is the Schelling point.
Nothing beats that, it's a greater advantage than all the nice functionalities of the others. I write my posts on busy, I look appreciatively at the steempeak functionalities, I use eSteem and partiko on my mobile, I've tried steeve.app as well.
But nothing compares to Steemit.com. It might be just a habit, or there might be something else. Theoreticising doesn't necessarily do much here, but to me (and I'm sure to most non technical people like artists, photographers, most bloggers) there's almost only steemit.com
To outside people too, there's only steemit.com. If you discard that, people won't simply move to the other UIs, they'll simply lose interest and forget about the steem ecosystem wholesale.