Steemit has a few issues, but some of them may work out in time. It needs to be seen as 'fair'. The earnings model is too skewed in favour of the whales. A minnow may get loads of votes from fellow minnows and earn nothing. That will discourage them. I think there should be options to make transactions anonymous.

If you started again from scratch then would lots more people buy in or would a new version struggle to gain users? It's hard to know.