You (as well as Steemit, Inc) keep emphasizing the importance to distinguish between STEEM and Steemit, however, I am quite sure that a huge majority of (potential) investors, like it or not, won't evaluate STEEM without considering the proceedings on Steemit.
Actually, I myself recently abstained to convert a few more bitcoins into STEEM, because of the fact that whales can - and in fact do - enrich themselves so easily with STEEM by abusing the Steemit platform ... they can even get the highest reputation within the whole STEEM microcosm by doing so. Do you think earning huge amounts of STEEM by selfvoting (and other 'tricks') and then selling them on exchanges will lead to a higher STEEM price?
Furthermore, not every (potential) investor is a 'crypto nerd'. I guess for many 'normal' investors from outside the inner 'crypto circle' the advantages of 'our' blockchain may be 'nice to have', but what matters for them is indeed a functioning (not too much spam, especially on trending, no flag wars, happily interacting humans, ...) social media platform full of 'normal' people!
Do you think the success of facebook is based mainly on brilliant technology? I admire the brilliant concept of STEEM, but no: above all the success of facebook is based on a huge amount of (more or less) satisfied users utilizing it for interacting with each other. I am convinced that the majority of investors is comparing Steemit with other social media sites before making a final decision if to invest in STEEM or not, and that's why in my opinion we (and especially everybody with some influence) still should carefully watch what is happening here on Steemit.
Well, you are entitled to your opinion. There is really nothing you said that is incorrect. I agree 100% that there are many problems with the platform currently, and they are a deterrent to many investors. The problems we have today are solvable though, and I believe that when we do solve them STEEM is going to be worth a lot to money. Investors can wait around until everything is fixed and working as expected, but if they do wait until then I can pretty much guarantee they won’t be buying in at $0.70 STEEM.
Anyway: don't get me wrong, I really appreciate all your efforts, and it will be very interesting to observe the impact of - for example - SMTs and other exciting developments.
However, apart from that, I wonder how the not so crypto affine potential investor is watching us, what matters for him, what he is seeing first when thinking about his first crypto investment? Isn't still the idea of combining a facebook/Instagram like site (like Steemit) with the opportunity of earning money most appealing? I really recommend not to neglect and not to oversee the importance of Steemit.
And if you are right with your prediction, I will be more than happy, and especially a person like you, who invests a huge amount of time in promoting (and improving) STEEM would more than deserve that!
I think we both want the same thing. I just don’t think steemit.com is going to get us there. Check out SteemPeak.com for example. It is already way better than steemit. If they were to add their own SMT (once SMTs are live) with a better distribution and stakeholders who are willing to fight bid bots (not saying they will, just giving an example) we would be a lot closer to the goal.