I think steemit lacks foresight and vision. Their main selling point which is 'earn money on social media' is going to be the most boring thing when every website uses this tech.
They are not taking advantage of the fact that they were the first app to use this tech.
Their slogan could have been " steemit, your entry to the new economy" or "the gates to the digital world" or " the genesis of a new world" basically something more general and professional sounding that highlights the fact that steemit is where it all started, but instead they chose to use "money talks" which is going to be a moot selling point a year from now when rewarding users is the default on the internet.
There are also some basic rules in marketing that steemit is not respecting, for example a short slogan. I mean I don't even know what steemit slogan is, they don't even have a proper landing page...logo must be easily recognizable, steemit logo is like a circle..
they're doubling down their focus on the money by pushing SMTs
I think SMT's are a good thing, it will allows steemians to not care so much about steemit anymore...Personnally I think steemit is not going to be around few years from now if SMT's turns out to be succesfull and if they stay on the same track.
they should burn that massive stake they have
Agree with this. There is clearly mismanagement of this money, they are hording it instead of spending on brand/design/marketing. They could do amazing things for steemit with their millions if they wanted to..
flagging EOS is not helping investor confidence either. This points to something much more problematic.
With SMTs etc., isn't there supposed to also be a widget of sorts that any website can add to their page to reward users with steem (but they'll be able to name the currency whichever way they want)?
Granted, why go with steem when they can invent their own currency.
But, smaller websites won't have the money to invest in doing that, whereas the steem widget will be plug-and-play, so getting rewarded in steem with be the default way to do it on the internet, I guess, so steem will have the upper hand, initially at least.
Consider also that steem is already big-ish, whereas a new coin by another site will be initially small. Users, being human, will want to be rewarded with more, not less, money!
They will also want to cash out easily. Steem is already in many exchanges. There are sites like bitwala that issue prepaid visa cards that you can top up with steem and use like a regular visa card to purchase stuff in the real world. Will the new coins of X website be able to do that at the very outset?