Late to the party -- @mstafford response to survey.

Steem User Survey:

How long have you been using Steem?

I believe I joined up just before Christmas 2017 -- right when things were exploding in value, and Steem was at ~$8USD

Where are you in terms of SP? (Plankton(0-500SP), Minnow(500-5000SP), Dolphin(5k-50kSP), Whale(you're probably not a whale, if you are you know what a whale is))

Dolphin, I suppose.

Where are you in the world? (Just Country)

Canada

What brought you to Steem?

An gateway into crypto that didn't require my credit card, and the allure of large rewards for blogging -- plus, it seemed to be a wealth of knowledge (read: opinions) about various projects.

What was your first impression?

Very interesting with lots of potential. Flabbergasted that people were getting "money" for sharing pictures.

How do you feel about the current state of Steem?

Cautiously optimistic, and it's an interesting place (at least currently) for hobbyist / startup developers to explore and try things. A bit of a wild-west.

That said, I'm pretty sure that there's an unhealthy obsession with seducing 'investors' into the ecosystem, and there's far too much prominence placed on it.

How often do you use Steem applications/websites/etc

Daily. Intermittently throughout the day, similar to browsing reddit.

What is your favorite Steem Application and why?

I'd be remiss if I didn't insert a shameless plug for my project EXHAUST -- an athletics training / tracking / social-sharing project similar to STRAVA. I enjoy the running / cycling community here on Steem. That said -- I've been lazy this winter and haven't exercised much -- I suppose my next favorite application would be Appics, which I think has potential to be successful.

What’s your favorite thing about Steem?

1. The ability to experiment / create my own projects with ease;
2. Earning some form of value is nice;
3. There are some interesting folks on here -- there's definitely a community aspect.

What’s your least favorite thing about Steem?

Stake-weighted voting (at least in terms of the reward pool, but I have reservations about it for the SPS and Witness voting as well) and the fact that so many people seem to be completely tolerant of the influence that 'whales' have over everything that trends / happens here.

How difficult/easy would you say it is to use Steem?

It's easy -- people just make it seem complicated. Sign-up, login, vote, comment, post. The financial side of managing your wallet is slightly more complicated, but nothing a 5 minute video couldn't educate people on. Same can be said with private-key management.

It's obviously still more geared towards a more technically sophisticated group, rather than 'the masses', though.

Would you recommend Steem to family/friends/coworkers? If no why not?

I have in the past, and continue to do so -- especially with the emergence of Appics. Some of my friends have prominent followings on Instagram, and strive to keep up to date with emergent technologies.

I think there is potential here, which is why I am developing a project or two (very slowly, and of admittedly poor quality -- but projects none the less).

What do you wish you could do with Steem that you can’t currently?

Purchase / Sell directly for $CAD or $USD without needing to fund a BTC, LTC, ETH wallet first. In my eyes, this is likely one of the largest barriers to people acquiring more STEEM.

What excites you most about Steem?

I think there's a lot of potential in the Escrow functionality -- and I'm surprised I haven't seen it leveraged much yet.

There's probably a place for an "Etsy" style shop where makers can sell objects, buyers can buy, and a third-party arbiter (part of the Escrow transfer) could earn a small fee (percentage of sale, perhaps) for helping settle disputes and ensure that both parties are satisfied.

This would create opportunities for more people to engage with one another, as well as earn some STEEM (or whatever token). On top of all that, there would finally be a way to spend STEEM.

What worries you most about Steem?

I see numerous people trying their hardest to apply traditional business models / investor-centric thinking (seduce 5-investors capable of investing $1million) rather than constructing projects that are focused on emboldening and enabling regular community members (engage 1million users each capable of contributing $5).

I worry that old / traditional thinking will overwhelm the decentralized possibilities available here, and soon we'll just have Steem Apps brought to you by Pepsi^{TM C R}