So after a few months of using this site/app/block explorer, whatever you'd like to call it, my personal opinion is pretty negative towards how it all works.
I find it frustrating to put time into a post, only to get maybe 1 or 2 views, when other people just grab a photo from google images, call it their own, and get upvoted to oblivion.
The reward system seems completely broken, and there needs to be a better system for viewing content that actually has time spent on it. Maybe a way to filter out things by the amount of words in the post would help.
I have roughly 200 followers, yet I rarely get more than a handful of views or upvotes, even though there is engagement on most of the posts. The posts I take the most effort to write, often get good response but yet again, rarely get any kind of attention or upvoting. Im not saying I deserve hundreds of upvotes, or attention of any kind, but after using the site for a while and accumulating a small amount of followers, I would expect a bit more activity on my posts. Most of the time the 'new' category is full of foreign language posts with one word and a photo of a dog near a fence.
I try to post, and upvote other content I like, and have no problem tossing someone an upvote for time they put into a post, or a good comment. Why do others feel the need to upvote what I consider to be garbage spam posts.
I think if this site is to grow, and compete as some kind of social media tumblr type thing, then the users need to really improve the way they use this site. Stop upvoting content that a person barely put any time into, but instead loaded their account with steem power.
Funny thing is, most likely no one will even see or read this post. Its pretty hard to want to use this site when there is such a small amount of moderation. I understand the concept of a decentralized social network/tumblr, but when there is content involved, it needs to be curated or moderated. I have used Twitch.tv in the past, and even with very little followers, there is still engagement and random viewers. I just find it weird that I seem to grow in followers, but rarely do my posts get anything more than one or two comments or upvotes. Again I'm not begging for upvotes or views, I am simply explaining my findings from using this network for a few months now. Maybe I'm missing the point, but it seems that in order to really benefit from using this site, you need to already have a huge following on another social media or platform.