The first part is that steemit is only one app on the #steem blockchain so while there are less people blogging on the site than last year, apps like @splinterlands are doing very well. New sites have opened up on the chain like @travelfeed, @threespeak and @steemleo that have really improved on the first generation of apps that were created with more in the works.

We have some great developers working on projects and a hardcore community that have kept going even with the markets being in red for the past 2 years. A lot of the people who left only did so because crypto markets dropped and when they turn around you can bet a lot of them will flood back in. Some left due to the changes over the past year but the userbase here is still tiny and everything is in development.

It will be the next wave of users that will make or break the whole system and the price of STEEM. That will be the stage where new users don't even know they are operating on a blockchain and accept tokens as an everyday norm. They will join through various apps and might never see the mechanisms that we can see being built in real time. That is still a few years off but a lot of people have very short term vision and expect everything perfect straight away even though it is still being built.

What i can recommend is to find an app or community that you like. Have fun using it and don't worry about crypto or markets. Just keep powering up and growing for the future. There are changes coming up to introduce communities and STEEM tokens for existing apps that will make it easier to bring in large groups of people together and to organize groups and content which have been big issues in the past. I see this as being a good starting point for everything else that is coming down the line. If you have any questions feel free to ask me or joining @steemterminal is a great place for new users on discord.