Steemit Life: It's Great That We Are Developing All These Apps! But Who's Gonna USE Them?

It seems almost no day passes without some "Grand Announcement" that someone has (or is) developed some really cool new dApp for the Steem Blockchain.

Wow! Cool! Awesome!

"We're really excited about the new Flubboximizer dApp which will change the way the devs can develop new dApps to run inside other dApps!"

These sunflowers make me happy...

Why... Bully for you!

Excuse me for a moment, but today's first post is going to be a bit of a frustrated rant!

Color me Cynical, Part I

Color me cynical, but who exactly is going to use all these dApps? Which leads me to the follow-up question... (which is one of the root truisms and principles of building ANY business) "Are you actually building something to address the needs of a known client base... or are you merely 'developing an app in search of a customer?""

Because if it's the latter, you're going to be really, really disappointed when you show off your new "magic toy" and it's received with a massive "and WHO exactly CARES about this?" Which is basically the sound of the thud a lead balloon makes when it hits the ground.

There is a lot of stuff in our world that has no business being "brought to market." In many cases, because there is simply no need for it, or there's already an oversupply of it. Like video stores in the 1980's.

Have you noticed how shopping malls keep shutting down? And how we are going to lose 30% of all shopping malls in the next 5 years?

It's not because the stores had "bad ideas," and it's not even because of the growth of online shopping... it's because of the "elephant in the room" nobody's willing to look at and "own," namely that we have way too much shopping available — NOBODY ACTUALLY NEEDS ALL THAT STUFF!

And so, I come back to my first cynical question: "Who's actually going to USE all these dApps?"

If you come here with "Lambo Dreams" and all you can muster is 300 users... you're going to be really unhappy!

Color me Cynical, Part II

Knowing what we already covered in Part I, I keep coming back to "The Establishment's" pervasive ability to ignore Steemit's actual community of end users and content creators.

You go out and ask the world, and most people equate "Steemit" with "Steem."

Whether you like it or not — or intended it, or not — it has become rather like "Kleenex" and "tissues," or "Xerox" and "copies."

Steemit is associated with Steem... and it's just like people are going to ask for *"a Kleenex" to blow their nose, not a "Puffs," or some other arbitrary brand.

So Fncking WORK with it!

Hereunder, STOP working so damn hard to market Steem purely as "A great place to develop dApps!" and wake up to the fact that one of the primary benefits of this community is precisely is that you could put a little effort into community building (including an improved Steemit front-end user interface) at the end of which you would be able to say the following:

The Steem Blockchain is a great place to develop dApps... AND WE ALREADY HAVE A HUGE BUILT-IN USER BASE!

See what I just did, there?

Close-up of sage blossoms

It's Called "Differentiation," in Marketing Speak

If the people who make a difference around here could just pull their collective heads out of wherever they keep them for long enough to see a little daylight...

... you'd also be able to see that being able to see that being able to offer a "built-in user base" can be a huge competitive advantage.

Which will become more and more important, as Steemit social competitors and new blockchain projects increasingly come to market.

Right now, we can still materially "trade" on having the "First Mover Advantage" in this field, but let's not squander it by being short sighted, narrow minded and excessively solipsistic.

I say this, as I watch very worthy and hard-working community organizations on Steemit struggle to build their delegations enough to make a tiny difference (shoutout and thanks to people like @theycallmedan, @bluemist, @fulltimegeek and others who DO support community building!) with 10K SP, while others get 500K SP handed to them on a place because their last sneeze might have sounded a little like a potential new dApp...

Really?

Can we not be a little more discerning and balanced here?

And before you get too "protesty" and butthurt with me here... I ask you again "Who's going to USE your amazing new dApp?"

/end rant

Thanks for reading!

Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!

(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 190213 16:06 PST
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