Hi @stellabelle. Brilliant post with things that indeed need to be said. You have asked so I will answer, long one I am afraid. From my point of view (a relative newbie) I found the whole thing a bit difficult to maintain and due to the pressures in my life, I do not have the time to invest that others in this platform do.

I have also struggled to create meaningful relationships with people, because I do not know who is genuinely interested in what people write and who is just upvoting for the financial gain. I seem to come across an awful lot of brown nosing, and that makes me feel uneasy. The fact that curation rewards are linked to the amount of steem a post gets seems a bit of a flaw. Those that get upvoted a lot will continue to get those upvotes even if their content declines in quality because many just do it to leech from the rewards.

I have introduced other people to the platform and they are doing okish with it, but they are the artistic types and it seems that sort of content is definitely more sought after, or better rewarded in any case.

I keep trying to draw parallels with other social media platforms I tend to use a lot more, and I have spotted a couple of differences. Facebook for example allows me to join groups so I can seek the type of info I want depending on my needs or mood, and the people in those groups are familiar and on the same wavelength. Here you can use the tags but you have to wade through so much trash sometimes! And the tags are just not specific enough. There is also a healthier mix of agreeing and disagreeing narratives. Steemit seems to be a place where disagreeing is undesirable because you might get flagged and obliterated as a result, affecting your bottom line.

In terms of my own content, I just think it is sad that you put a certain amount of work into something and you can only get exposure for a week, tops. After that people rather not waste their SP so it does not get shared or show up anywhere again. Yes you can wade through someone's old posts, but it is rather downheartening that they do not get the support for content that continues to be relevant and useful.

Now, what do I want out of steemit? I want a place where I can meet people with similar interests where my appreciation of their work becomes more than just a 'like'. Rewards are good things. Unfortunately the platform lends itself to just being a faucet for some, and there seems to be no way of stopping that.

I also want a platform that is decentralised and 'democratic' to some extent, so rules and processes are flexible depending on users needs. However, this requires people with knowhow and their time.

Potential solutions (disclaimer - I have some basic understanding of the workings of the creation of Steem, SP and SBD so I understand some of these things might really not work within the current framework);

• Make groups a 'thing' where the creator/s can administrate, veto members and remove spammers, scammers, beggars and brown nosers. We need safe havens from all this trash.
• Stop linking curation rewards to post earnings.
• Stop the lending of SP or maybe put a ceiling on it, so we don't have superwhales or people punching above their weight because they have more money to burn.
• Allow rewards after 7 days, even if they just reflect on the reputation or some other marker.
• Do not allow upvotes without opening the post.
• Maybe create a bartering system where services/information/advice/support can be sought and given using Steem as the currency. This could relate to the groups. The more useful you are to others in real terms, the more Steem you get.

Those are my very rough suggestions. Some of them might be impossible within the platform but this is just my opinion.

Thank you for listening if you got this far. :)