""decoupling the relationship between vote power and how many tokens one holds" goes against stake-weighted voting that is the whole point of the steem blockchain."
I disagree. Rewarding creators and curators is a completely separate issue from basing rewards on stake, and Steem, from my read of the white paper, was not intended to duplicate the issues stake weighting imposed on societies throughout history, but to revolutionize how economic rewards impacted society, using Steemit as a microcosm.
Indeed, as @ned has repeatedly pointed out recently, this is precisely one of the purposes of SMTs, as combining them with oracles and communities enables stake weighting to be avoided as it was not for Steem itself.
I expect that the user retention rate is a reflection of how unsatisfactory many have found stake weighting on Steemit. For the cohort of which I am a member, joining in May 2017, the retention rate is about half the 13% figure named, actually about 7.5% YOY.
I expect that communities that emphasize stake weighting will have even lower retention rates when alternatives become available, as they have not yet on Steemit.
The real point of censorship resistance is to empower society to reflect actual facts in their posts and comments, and pandering to stake is inherently degrading. The preferability of alternatives will be quickly revealed, and communities will thrive or fail as a result of their recognition of the vastly higher value of honest and factual creations to society than those merely better funded.
While the several social media platforms earlier mentioned weren't decentralized, few users of social media have much idea what effect decentralization has yet. The abysmal retention rate of Steemit in comparison reflects the satisfaction of users based on the metrics they find compelling, and the absence of stake weighting is possibly a significant factor, despite the utter lack of earnings on other platforms most users are availed that are potential on Steemit.
The 7.5% retention rate was calculated by @paulag, and you can verify the validity by checking out her blog, which I highly recommend.
You gave me alot to think about. Perhaps the emphasis on stake-weighted voting needs changing. I dont know for sure what is the best way to go about it.
But I can think of one problem if stakes on the blockchain are removed, specifically what then would incentivize users to gather steem and hold them as a Store of Value? You can surely agree that if there were no incentive to hold on to steem, every creators would drive views and clicks (possibly using click-farms) to their posts, get payout and immediately cashout.
As for user retention, tbh by now i can't quite care less (or perhaps i've changed my stance on "user retention/acquisition") because more than likely those who came here for quick profit alone came here for the wrong reasons and they will be the ones that leave here. You can call it maximalism, elitism whatever. But tbh i dont think we're ready for full mass adoption yet.
I don't think the steem blockchain will be the only blockchain that is relevant to the content web. Maybe another competitor will soon rise and rival against Steem's stake-based voting? Only the market will tell. Until then I'm sticking to the platform that gave me an opportunity that i otherwise would never have gotten anywere else.