I would argue that there are many communities here as intended under an umbrella of Steem, which could constitute a society.
When it comes to the community rating content, that can never be the case as only a portion of the whole will ever even see it once there is more than a couple hundred people here, which it has been since very close to the start. People will stick largely to their interests, their niche, their community.
The city still holds even though not everyone knows each other nor are likely to ever meet and I agree, the city needs services and the communities within will sort themselves out. I see the services as the infrastructure requirements to house those communities, the bandwidth, nodes etc - something not everyone can provide meaning that those that can could be considered their own community of sorts.
The project I see can scale by providing the infrastructure required for communities to leverage. It just means that not everyone is going to be doing the same jobs which is why there are various group classes that i roughly see as investors, developers, contributors and consumers. While they might all want different outcomes, it is in their best interest for all (as many as possible) to be satisfied.
When it comes to Steem, the diversity of content is as just about as diverse as any content delivered on the internet since, it is all just content. And as I have said previously, it is possible that through SMTs new users might never know of Steem at the core. It could be akin to a CMS where the users don't care about the underlying code, just what it delivers to them. Most users of Youtube do not care what feeds them the videos.
While this might be the future of Steem, at the moment there is a small and connected enough group that one could consider that it has components f community involved, for example in the SOS forum now on PAL. While not everyone is in there, that could be considered some kind of town hall, community meeting.
The language of "community" is an appeal to sign up to someone else's vision, to join a cause or pitch into something.
This is an opt-in system that no one need join nor stay at yet, even if they don't do anything, it is also an open system that they can still use.
My hope is that in time people will find each other and build communities based on their interests and then agree to build something they love rather than wait for others to do it for them. However, this requires some level of infrastructure that most do not have available to them now on Steem. Nothing is stopping anyone from building communities in the myriad other platforms out there but, there are some added benefits of Steem and if supported broadly enough, the massive benefit of stability through diverse usage.
The project itself I see as a future conglomeration of many projects that are independently owned, operated and supported in various ways but, run somehow connected to steem whether directly or through SMTs. This way they can all rely on the system to provide capabilities through their various witnesses and nodes but, live freely under whatever banner they choose to wave.
You haven't exactly disagreed with me here, so I'll take it as tacit approval. To restate I think that the focus on communities as creating a mutually beneficial Steem is not the most important focus. I would be interested in you direct reaction to this point.
Thanks for the long reply, I considered it all despite my short reply here. I am sure that people will create communities and need very little encouragement to do so, it's very natural.
I definitely agree with the CMS future of Steem, if it survives long enough it will become that largely I would say, seems a sure bet. We'll probably look back on these times as like people who were really interested in a certain database 😂 but that's precisely the point, things that use Steem are more important (or will be) than things about Steem. Perhaps the market is drying up for think pieces about Steem, I'm now never breaking $1 on posts, so perhaps it's time to put my money (or rather time!) where my mouth is.
I don't disagree with most of it.
Focus now or overall?
As said, I see this much like a city that needs to service everyone but, it is in the developmental phases. What brings everyone (most) together later is getting the foundations in now. There is an order of business and while I think that groups need to align their incentives, the timeline is not going to meet all needs simultaneously. Sewers and roads before opera houses and amusement parks.
Well, I find all of it a big amusement park already :D