Not having answered those questions before, opened up an opportunity for another comment interaction! Perhaps that was strategy too? :P
Steemit, to my perception, isn't like any other platform, and in that sense it's completely unique:
due to the existence of crypto / monetary rewards on Steemit, lots of emphasis is put there, and I don't think that helps the platform growth nor content quality, at least in its current form. Those direct "contribution rewards" are completely missing elsewhere, and since it's influencing user behavior on Steemit beyond doubt, both from a quality ánd SMAP perspective, this aspect alone puts Steemit in a league of its own;
the existence of bots on Steemit, a way to automate things, is of course also completely unique, at least compared to other "social media / publishing" platforms. I don't think the possibility to develop and deploy bots is "bad" per se, but currently most bots are not "original" either.
I'm completely amazed why Steemit Inc doesn't severely upgrade Steemit.com, not to mention the new account sign-up process. So much more could be done with it...! The Steem & SBD market cap (price * circulating supply) partly positively correlates with the amount of active users of the Steem platform. It can also be perceived as the "company's worth".
The way I'm looking at the Steem ecosystem, is that it's still in its infancy stages. It's characteristics as a publishing / blogging platform are only tiny fractions of its full potential. Look at the speed of the steem (graphene) blockchain technology compared to other blockchains. Look at the amount of "transactions" (where a transaction is not just financial, but can be anything, including a post, or a follow, or whatever). And the community using it all.
Already via Discord (another thing: why do we need an external private messaging environment???) I personally have had a few arrangements for me to (co-) develop Python tools for others for a Steem/SBD compensation. Why can't we have "smart contracts" in direct platform-supported way to make such agreements between users? Look at the new Utopian moderator payment system (which TheScipMeister thought of originally), where we have the system auto-commenting and upvoting those comments, on behalf of the mods. Same principle, in essence, as SteemDunk: expand on that tech, and we'll have an opportunity for subscription based payments / smart contracts, all at the core of the platform. Look at @someguy123's @privex-io : how cool would it be, if we could just - from within Steemit.com - tick a few Privex server options, add a domain, get that server and auto-pay for it subscription-based with Steem/SBD? We could add any product or service to that ecosystem.That way, blogging, would be just one possible option of the Steem / Steemit ecosystem. A gigantic system of "Crypto Commerce" added on top of it would be another, possibly a far more valuable one. Look at the BTC price, look at BTC circulating amount. And look at SBD price, and its circulating amount. The amounts of both are in the exact same ballpark; prices are not. But Steemit / Steem / SBD has even more potential: we have the blockchain tech, the community / active users, so if we realize and implement that "Steem / SBD Crypto Commerce" ide of mine... just imagine what the Steem / SBD price and market cap potential could be if you look again at BTC's....
@scipio
(PS Paula: I kindly took your idea / question to another place :P )
wow lol maybe I should not have asked. There is a big difference between steem and steemit and the potential of the blockchain is massive