Money follows money on steemit, and fresh accounts won't do much to change the ecosystem of steemit unless those users stay and their participation is weighted in a manner that encourages user retention. Right now there's little to no incentive for great writers to write on steemit if they can't find the right monetary support or have fat stacks of their own to boost their profile, and steemit needs to avoid continuing as a pay to win game if it's to be taken seriously as a platform.

People buying in near highs just lets early investors cash out, a stable price and a system that rewards quality authors in the long run will benefit everyone if we're to compete with other platforms and carve out a niche of our own. Right now the main appeal to new users is "make fat gains" and old users is "use your fat gains to make more fat gains" and neither trajectory is healthy if a lasting community is to be fostered. Limiting new users to 10 votes a day is a form of free to play, pay to win, artificial restriction that encourages new users to buy steam power and limits their engagement with the site to upvoting ten times a day, throwing out as many garbage comments as possible in the hopes of getting an upvote, and calling it a day. No offense to them as I understand that many people just have a cell phone and limited communication skills in the languages of choice of most whales. On-site language translation might at least help with this aspect of filler comments and give them a chance to actually participate in conversations in a meaningful way.

Sincere users will be deterred and only those who find it profitable to get a few cents here and there a day will use the platform if their costs of living are low enough, and this trickle-down system of self-voting and voting for whales is a serious threat to the growth of the platform in countries where that level of bare-bones economic activity isn't worthwhile in and of itself. People use other sites without such monetary incentives because of the social links they already have and maintain, so it's not that baffling that daily user count hasn't increased at all before the price surge here. Like if people go to twitter to have a laugh and share funny comments with their friends and that's all that draws them there, then what does steemit have to offer for the ordinary person? It needs to be the best at something, and other than the steemoola I'm not sure it's on the right path to finding its place yet.