Thank you for the topic!
I'm now here for 1.5 months and that's just 1/4 of your time here, others are more than a year here. What i experienced and what's also my inner conviction is that everyone who has fundamental positive attitude towards the Steemit platform and thinks long term will succeed.
I read old posts (a year or more old) and was surprised after analyzing the comments, the attitude and reputation scores. What i found out was, that people who put in a lot efforts, maybe also direct money, defended the platform are doing well now. They have reputation scores >60 or 70, the blamers, doubters were still at the 30s, 40s and so i think the system rewards like in real life people who are willing to invest their time and money without any expectation of success.
That's how it works in real life if you build a business. It's never done over night. I read from a now recognized Steemian with reputation >70 that she expect nothing, but that she currently (a year ago) investing all their time to writing well thoughtout posts.. and that could maybe lead to be successful. But i think she had also a hard time for many months until it had payed out for her.
If i look if someone joined in June 2017 and now gave up then i think it's far too early for Steemit. From my point of view it was never the intention of the founders to give everybody from the start big rewards. It is more a test and also a selection if someone can withstand and can be patient to build up his or her reputation for many months with no guarantee of success.
But a year ago the situation was very similar than now. There were doubts if the platform would exist in the near future, why the price of STEEM is declining.
You made a good point for mainstream adoption because my thoughts are not supportive for mass building of new users, because i think for many such timeframes of a year is far too much before they see better rewards. And the crux is, why should someone change from FB to Steemit if he get's initially low rewards and has just limited functionality in comparison to other platforms now? If we just look at the social platform side it lacks here.
And so it needs a bit more time, because UI works, better functionalities are are already on the horizon to pull much more users to our Steemit platform. Here are some posts regarding further development
The State of STEEM - August Expansion
New website design for Steemit
That are just my thoughts.
In summary you sure agree that retaining our newbies is key for going mainstream right?