Thanks for this article.
Great to know that there are countries out there, who are tending to use Steem instead of their own currency.

While reading your post, I was hoping to find more solutions to push Steem, as you stated in the first paragraph, that you want to change how Steemit is perceived and that you want to push it to become more popular.
Anyway, you have great solutions to this problem.

To me it just seems that the claims, that there aren't as enough users on Steemit as there are on other platforms, only seems to be half of the truth.
It's just my opinion as I stated. - I don't have any statistics to back my claim, but I know that there are a lot of people signing up to Steemit to become on of the "few" members to this great community.

But to get to the point, why there might not be enough people on this network is: while Steemit is a great way to blog and post self-written articles, it isn't as simple as other platforms.
I also think that people find it too complicated with all the keys (passwords) that are needed to log in, to transfer SBD and so on.
While this is the best way to keep security high, I guess a lot of people already have lost their keys (passwords) and can't log in anymore, after trying to do so after a while.
Another thing that other social media platforms have in common, and what Steemit doesn't - but also offers, is something like Steepshot. - Uploading pictures while people like it and being able to upload as much and at anytime as you want. In short - keeping it simple.

People love and always tend to use things that only need one step to take part in a community. Steemit on the other hand (in my opinion), seems a lot more like a blog where you can get a few earnings from, if you are good enough. But you need to think of what to write, you need to upload a picture and if it doesn't work that well and you don't look out, the syntax is interrupted by a letter that you have forgotten to add space to, and then the picture won't show (etc.).
The marking style sheet for me seems really like the best thing to get my own hands dirty on, try things out, how they might work and kind of figure how programming in a simple language looks like. - Heck it's fun!

BUT: and you guys have to bare with me: the majority doesn't care about those kind of stuff. They just need things to work, preferably on it's own.
For example, I've been trying to get my IPFS running to finally become a DTube member because I've had it with YouTube and their regulations and terms of use... But I can't, because to me, setting my IPFS up and running is such a pain in the A** that I got frustrated and quit.
Now a lot of you guys might think, "this noob can't be generalizing things just because it doesn't work for him", but I actually can.
You see, the majority of the people are noobs who just want to use, take part and not put much effort in it.

So the best solution would be to find a way to make things easier for Steemit users, so that there will be a rise in new users.
But then there will be another problem occurring, which we already have in this community:

• People abusing the rewards system
• people being blacklisted for faulty circumstances
• or people who don't bring quality content to the board and who will ruin what we have had: an actually legit boat of good quality writers and bloggers who contribute to the community and take care of each other while doing so.

Otherwise we might be indirectly inviting people like Jake Paul etc., and I clearly don't want people who are disrespectful towards other human beings but being hyped by the masses, to be one of ours.

As I stated, it's just my opinion. But there are a lot of solutions to solving this problem, but then again - we need to factor out the easiest solutions otherwise it'll backfire and Steemit will become one of all the similar platforms that are already surfacing on the surface of Shi*t River.

Thanks for reading.
I hope I didn't offend anyone with my opinion and I hope I won't get a ton of shitstorming. But I think stating his own opinion in a respective way and being responsible for it is the most important and right thing to do, especially in this community.

Sincerely,

beta