All marketing is useless...
And no marketing is worse.
I agree with your statement about them not understanding the social aspect of social media. I think it all began with the creation of a blogging site. Very few people actually blog. Even fewer can do it well. There would have been a much better reception and probably a lot more interest if a blogging site wasn't created and they opted for something closer to Instagram instead.
I'm not sure that communities will solve much until there's a way to search and actually find the content you're looking for. This also happens to be why a 7-day payout doesn't make much sense. You really can't find much here after it's posted unless you know exactly where to look...which is basically on the user's profile page.
In short, there are still plenty of reasons why Steemit has problems attracting and retaining users. With the UI/design being what it is, it's not even visually pleasing and fun to use. If it weren't for the payouts, I doubt anyone would actually use this site. That's a huge problem. People should want to use Steemit because it's a great site for social media...and also because you have a chance to earn rewards. Some serious work needs to be put into the former.
Agreed, UI/design is godawful. Even https://voat.co/ looks better.
Touche!
I post frequently on other blogs and thought I could use some of them here, but every time I use one I get this robotic message from "cheetah" stating my posts sound familiar.... At the end of every post, I always state where it was posted before. I'm not enjoying Steemit, nor the posting, editor, and the site itself is not enjoyable to read. I've only been here a short while and still don't understand how the payout works, or if you upvote early you receive more $$?. Why make a site so complicated for a first-time user? Think I'll quit posting on this site.
Cheetah is a robot that messages the author if he finds the same content on other sites. You just need to message him that it is your content, not just something you have copied from other sites.
The site is still new, lot of work to be done but it's heading toward the right direction, a bit slowly though. But it will get better. I believe there is steemit faq that you could read on that could answer many of your questions. Here it is: https://steemit.com/faq.html