You are telling the truth about the UI
I love Steemit but my friends who are not "tech people" looked at it once and one asked "Why is it stuck in 2001? and laughed", it was harsh to hear but she was simply being honest.
I talked about FB spying and taking ownership rights of her content and about making money on Steemit and never seeing advertisement, but she did not care one bit and just responded "the day it is as easy to use as facebook i will maybe try it".
So, "normal people" ONLY care about the glamour and the ease of use, and I am sad to say that Steemit will never become the next "big thing" in social media, unless it updates its UI and UX.
Exactly - Steemit maybe objectively and intrinsically better than FB, Twitter, etc. (I mean twitter, talk about joke-stealing) but the Steemit UI feels so clunky and out-dated and user-unfriendly that even super simple blogging sites like Medium still feel 1000x better. I'd write an essay on Medium and promote it EVERYWHERE with friends. I don't think anyone would read it on Steemit.
Also (and I admit I'm new so I might have just missed this), "serious" writing/blogging sites often have huge "you own everything we don't own anything" disclaimers, which is a HUGE deal for writers and is something they actively look for. Steemit having something similar would help the "scammy" feeling.
You are very right, the scammy feeling that new users get is another problem which should be fixed through a re-branding of the platform.
I hope they are working on it, but I fear that they don´t have anyone on their team who truly understands the importance of the visual design and how it relates to marketing of the platform.
But I am waiting patiently on the next platform updates in 2018, hoping that it will be made a priority.
Very true.