A Friendlier User Interface, Not the Price of STEEM, Will Scale Steemit

in steem •  6 years ago  (edited)
....In short, many users, at best, see Steemit as a place where you come, post your contents, walk away, and return to harvest rewards.....

Image credit: @majes.tytyty

On January 3rd 2018, the price of STEEM reached an incredible all-time high of $7.9. No doubt, the feat was a great advantage for Steemit and other Dapps built on the Steem blockchain.

Specifically, we saw thousands of new users joining Steemit every week until it reached a milestone of 1 million registered accounts.

The chant of "Steem to the moon" was on the lips of everyone and we thought that the golden moment for Steemit had come.

Unfortunately, following the crash in the price of STEEM, the number of active users on Steemit has declined terribly. This is largely because the post payouts have also dropped significantly.

Ironically, the same set of people that have abandoned Steemit because of the crashing price of STEEM are actively posting free contents on other social network platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

Then the big question arises, why are the same set of people who create free contents on other mainstream social network sites are getting frustrated on Steemit due to low payouts? The answer is simple - there is nothing "social" about the present user interface we have on Steemit.

In short, many users, at best, see Steemit as a place where you come, post your contents, walk away, and return to harvest rewards. The present user interface does not give much room for social interaction. It is why more than half of the registered people on Steemit are always nowhere to be found in a bear market.

Consequently, I believe that Steemit cannot scale (by this I mean become massively adopted by the crowd) if it continues to rely on the price of STEEM to surge before mass adoption. Such expectations, as we have already seen, will only result to fair weather users - those who will storm Steemit in a bull market and go into hiding once the price of STEEM hits the rock.

We need real and dedicated users of Steemit regardless of whether the market is bull or bear or butterfly. And we can only achieve this if Steemit is able to build a friendlier user interface. This will make it easier for people to connect with their loved ones and friends from all over the world.

Once this real emotional attachment has been successfully infused into Steemit through the development of a friendlier user interface, we would see more users caring more about being on Steemit than about the price of STEEM. This is only when we can confidently take Steemit to the crowd, to the billions of people across the globe.

I imagine a Steemit where instant messaging, video chatting, tag notification, follow notification, etc is possible. We would see a lot of people putting their social needs before money - not the other way round.

Until then, I wish you a FULL STEEM AHEAD.

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I asked this question too, when I see some of my former Steemians left here and still active at other social media. It is true most people are here for money, although yes there are also majority who stay for the people, for the community, like you, me and many others. Let's just hope one day Steemit will be be social users friendly.

😊 Thank you for sharing wise words

Thanks for your wonderful comments. I look forward to the day Steemit will become what Facebook is today. Good to read your comment.

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Very true. Steem needs to be more social friendly, if it wants to attract more users.

Sure. You're right. Thanks for your valuable comments.

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

This is very important aspect of Steemit. I appreciate you. However, I think main reason of leaving people from Steemit is not only that. It's design is a blog more than social media platform. Because you have to obey some rules while producing contents in Steemit. But you don't have to any rule on other social media platform. You spend much more time and you need some technical information about html codes. Therefore people really have to spend time and take care their content to be valuable. But sharing something in other platforms is just a moment. And interaction is also a motivative issue.

Thanks for bringing some fresh perspectives on this issue. I think you are very right on the points you've made. Bravo.

Thank you very much.

Please allow me to disagree with you on some of your points. As I write this post, I know at least 3 alternative platforms to Steemit.com that the creators are working very hard on in order to improve the user experience on Steemit.

It's not news that steemit.com doesn't have the best UI, that's why busy.org, steeve.app and steempeak.com exists. And their UIs are a lot better.

We all know that notifications is not usually available when using web platforms, that's why others are developing apps to improve the engagement to notifications and other features.

Esteem app has mobile (Android and IOS), windows and Mac versions also. Partiko also has Android and iOS apps that improve user experience using notifications among other things.

It's therefore my opinion that the level of interaction on Steemit is tied to the price of Steem.

One of the reasons is because many people are simply here for the money and profit and so cannot stand using the platform if it's not making any money for them, even though they could use it just like any other social media.

PS: Thanks for the 1SBD gift u gave to me on your birthday, I really did appreciate it and I still do. Have a nice day.

Posted using Partiko Android

One of the reasons is because many people are simply here for the money and profit and so cannot stand using the platform if it's not making any money for them, even though they could use it just like any other social media.

Your points are well received. Sure, the price of Steem has got a lot to do with the level of engagement we've seen here. Yet, I will like you to tell me why those people who are here for the money pay more attention to Facebook and Instagram where they get nothing for engagement. Could it be that they can express themselves more on those platforms? Could it be that those platforms give them some inherent sense of belonging that are unavailable here?

Always my pleasure to share with you and others on my birthday. My 1 year anniversary is another time to share. Thanks.