Steem Madness

Since I'm thinking about steem all day like a fucking maniac I've decided to get rid of frustrations with a simple post. It's not a new thing saying that Steem has the problem with retaining users and keeping them hyped about the same goal and vision we are hyped as well. So where are we failing to deliver?

Approach

I guess the root problem is the way we approach people when trying to get them onboard. There is no point saying how they'll earn money for doing simple tasks because they won't hahaha.
Human psychology is weird and hard to crack, especially when the money (and Women) comes around. If our main selling point is only oriented towards explaining financial benefits without stimulating any other reason to stick around we are doomed. Thankfully I have given myself some time to learn about Steem and blockchain technology, otherwise, I would probably quit after a few days.

We obviously lack that social aspect where people interact not only for the financial profit but rather to stay connected. The world is a huge place and people are social animals seeking attention and acceptance. Humans need to feel relevant and eligible to participate in decision making, it makes them feel more involved.

Information overload

Too much information can lead to a feeling of helplessness and inaction. For example, I care about the planet and climate change, but it is all just so complicated to solve that I don't know where to start, so I will continue behaving as before. A participatory approach to problem-solving can be highly motivational and effective encouraging behavior change, as well as making people happier.

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There are too many things going on that even steem veterans struggle to keep up with all the changes taking place every day. Not sure if it's even necessary to explain how the Steem economy works - They would end up learning about money, inflation, value, etc. and eventually lose interest.
I guess general crypto acceptance will eventually solve this problem - people are still too skeptical when it comes to crypto which makes it harder to explain what's happening behind the scene.

Benefits

More and more developers are starting to realize the benefits Steem has to offer. Besides the community, steem has to offer much more.

For instance, the DPoS system utilizes blockchain technology much more efficiently than any other consensus mechanism, thus allowing developers to onboard masses and keep the blockchain free to use. Although it doesn't seem to be off so high importance, it truly does.

To prove my thesis I have pulled out some data.

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During the bull market in 2017, transaction costs were higher than a transaction itself - Which made the whole concept unsustainable... For instance, 4 ETH needed to be payed in order to get the transaction verified (picked up by the miner).

"The source of frustration with the current fee system stems primarily from Ethereum’s attempt to price fees using a simple auction mechanism. Known as a first price auction, this system works by having everyone submit their bid (gas price) for how much they’re willing to pay to have their transaction picked up by a miner".

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Ok, this is an extreme example of how can things go wrong, but it's worth knowing it. The Ethereum network was loaded with too many transactions, which consequently resulted in higher fees, thus making small transactions unprofitable.

You need to act fast if you want to catch the highest/lowest bid and sometimes you waited for a couple of days just to get the transaction transferred.

Community

It's not a secret that Steem has the strongest community in the crypto space. Although we don't have the number of users as Facebook or similar apps - we do stand strong when it comes to crypto.

AnChain uses AI to detect any suspicious activity among blockchain DApps and to monitor transactions. In what is the largest study of blockchain DApps and bot activity to date, the intelligence firm analyzed “millions of transactions” from the Top 10 EOS gambling DApps.

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You get my point, right?
Most of accounts and transactions are the result of bad bots trying to pump volume.

On February 11, 2019, 93 percent of Ethereum DApps did zero transactions. These are not very encouraging results for the case of mass adoption. And it’s a lot worse than we thought.
According to a blockchain bot report released by blockchain security firm AnChain, most of the dismal stats churned out by DApps aren’t even coming from real people.

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On the other hand, when some Dapp comes to steem you have at least 5k people willing to participate and support your project, regardless if it matches their preferences or not. The simple interface is a different thing, but the real projects simply can't get unnoticed nor they can go under the radar.

We have built decent fundaments, now it's time to figure out what's the best way to onboard and retain users we are all seeking. Hopefully, steem proposal system will be a step further towards Steem adoption.