I haven't logged into Steem for ages, and when I came back I saw all of this commotion about #newsteem.
I jetted over to the bidbot page only to see crickets!
They milked the system hard and it did serve a purpose, but for them, all good things do eventually come to an end.
I am sure these guys made crap tons of money for all the months that bidbots were cashing in. It was all automated too so they got to sit on their duffs and watch the dough roll in.
I do hope that steemit can rise out of the muck, it is a pretty cool platform. But so many things are too complicated for mainstream.
I took a break for a while too so I get that. But yeah, I agree with all your points for sure! Steem sure has gone thru the ringer, especially with the bidbots sucking the life out of it. Luckily that is finally changing with the rewards change.
However, I don't know if steemit itself will ever be able to be "fixed". It isn't steemit that will bring the masses, it will be the DApps that ride on top of the steem blockchain, DApps like @actifit, @dtube, @steemhunt, @splinterlands that will bring the masses and they will eventually make it so you never never have to even get on steemit, you will be able to control your wallet and answer messages and write posts in their DApp. Those DApps won't be nearly as confusing as steemit is, they will be user friendly and look professional as well.
According to the whitepaper Steemit was never meant to be the main website, it was more of proof of concept, showing that this idea to pay people for content was feasible. In the future the steemit front end might not even exist, we now have sites like esteem, partiko and steempeak that are much more user friendly and nice to look at... Those will be for the masses.. :0)
Yeah that is a good point the Dapps are where its at. I am looking forward to experimenting with the SMT model once that launches, which sounds like they are still actively developing.
Yeah, they have been developing SMTs for 2 over years now so don't hold your breath! LoL. I still remember that being all the rage when I got on the platform in Aug 2017... But at least they are actively working towards it now.
If it wasn't for amazing steemians we wouldn't even have Steem Engine or the version of SMTs that we are running right now because they got together and made this happen without steemit inc... And SE is what has breathed life back into the steem blockchain and steemit.
I am incredibly optimistic and excited for the future of steem, I just don't ever count on steemit.inc anymore because they are pro's at dropping the ball!