I'm not a smart person so my answers might not help out those highly intelligent people looking to further their knowledge but I will give my average joe answers to the question.
For starters...SMT'S.
For me this will be a plug in solution for existing sites to utilize the steem reward system with their own tokens backed by STEEM. Allowing websites to distribute rewards based on their activities and voting power. If i set up an SMT with my website and want to share ad revenue with the people SMT's will allow it. It will allow people to have a different internet experience where they get rewarded for their input rather than creating money for the people at the top table like facebook where all of the money flows upwards. If I want to distribute tokens to allow extra benefits or stake in the system.
He was appalled at the fact that creating an account through Steemit.com can take upwards to a week or more.
The onboarding is terrible at the moment but having to pay $2 isn't exactly a killer when lots of places cost for extra services. Going forward their will be lots of other ways to get an account like steempress who will be creating free ones for people using their plug-in and steemmonsters that you can get one with your starter pack. Steemit won't be the face of STEEM in the future and it will be the different apps that will bring in people through their own sites.
We also spoke about what Steemit is...or is trying to be
Steemit is just another app on the chain and one that will be getting a facelift in the next hardfork with communities and SMT's. They haven't focused on it properly so far but i think that will change as they need it for ads and external revenue. It will be interesting to see how they set up the different communities on the site.
STEEM is going to be the road for all of these different apps. People will be able to use this road but it will cost to run apps just like tax for your car. This is why they will need SP. The good thing is that you can hop into different apps and sites once you have your account. Your SP carries across all of the apps.
The main thing to remember is that all of these systems are being built from the ground up and to be fair have seen massive development in the three years of growth. It's not user friendly yet, it doesn't have all of the tools yet and it isn't ready for the general public yet. With that said every hardfork and innovation has brought us closer to that point. Every new app has brough improvements n the last.
Actifit is my favorite example for the whole system. You use the app and earn tokens. These tokens can be traded for STEEM or held up for more influence. In the future you will be able to use STEEM through a crypto debit card and buy new sneakers. So by adding value to the app you will be able to use this value for real world application. The app makes profit from it's userbase and the userbase make profit from what they put into the app. Simple but effective.
Steemmonsters allows for ownership of the tokens in the cards market. They have value and can be traded but everything is recorded on the chain. Again it allows for you to get value for what you put in rather than just playing the game.
As for everything being on the chain it allows for transparency and ownership of content. If I put up a post it's easy to show that it's my content and while this can have negative consequences that is up to each person to beware of.