One thing to keep in mind is that Steem has been live for only a few months. It's in live Beta. Until 6 weeks ago, the payouts were unproven and uncertain. People were even MORE skeptical of what it would be. Then July 4th happened, the payouts proved out, the price went to the moon, there was a hack, there was growth in users and then the price started to fall back down, and now people are wondering if Steemit is a thing. 6 weeks. This is still nascent and to judge it without considering that is a mistake imho. It can't come out fully formed; nothing can. But right now several hundred devs are building in functionality into Steem from many different directions. So who knows what it will be. But it won't be boring.
I actually thing your involvement in shaping its evolution is crucial, specifically the issues you cited. Have you talked to @ned?
Synereo is a bit different, with goals that are a bit different. It, like Steem, will not come out of the box fully formed. I'd reserve judgment there as well. It's end game is a smart contracts platform and it has a brilliant team. Also keep in mind that while it seems like it's cheaply valued, it's actually valued at over 3x Steem right now. There are 1.6bn AMP extant, so its current valuation is very misleading. All-in-all, it's just not apples to apples with Steem.
Theoretically Synereo is the Facebook killer. Theoretically Steemit is the Reddit killer. Steemit is more like Reddit and 4chan than Facebook and this is perfectly fine, because both those sites are successfully popular. At the same time, Synereo from a theoretical design perspective is a different species, it's a true social computer while Steemit can evolve into a social computer but doesn't seem like it was designed from scratch to function as one.
@dana-edwards, how many Synereo tokens do you own?
That bizarre analogy seems to not be supported by the facts. It is just something you pulled out of your...
Just because Steem's blockchain was first demonstrated with long-form blogging doesn't mean that Steem is relegated to it. Also Reddit is not mostly about long-form blogging. And there is no logical reason to think Synereo is a Facebook killer.