Oh, after a month the problems are super visible. The White Paper tells you nothing (just checked), but right now Steemit is an amateur blogging platform (except for pros on the very narrow subject of crypto).
If I have one hour/day to read about politics, finance, sports, tech there are great writers out there that have built an audience over 10-20 years. These guys have written classic books... and are on 6-7 figure contracts.
In relative terms, amateur blogging is a low value no man's land that tweaking whale bot algos won't make competitive. It's not about "feedback"... it's about analyzing your competition.
Pretty solid view of the situation... although I'm quite confident that the high levels of attrition in new members can be reduced if some of the issues are resolved.
It just occurred to me that Steemit is VERY similar to Seeking Alpha, a site where both pros and amateurs blog about financial markets. So it can be done, but you have to target a competitor and TAKE their market share. It won't come to you.
http://seekingalpha.com/
I was looking at their stats, http://seekingalpha.com/page/about_us ... wow, 4mn users... didn't expect such a strong user base...