Dear Mike and Michael,
I want to take some time to address the points you made in this excellent interview.
1
Yes, there are no playlists on dtube yet. Dtube is still in its very early stages and has a lot of optimizing to do. As opposed to youtube, dtube has been programmed by a regular dude on Steemit. Meaning programmers can come upw ith their own apps for the Steem blockchain and the community decides via votes if it is wanted or not. This also explains why you can't just send your requests to Steemit Inc and hope to see improvement with dtube because it is overlooked by its individual creator, not by the overarching company. You could however write HIM directly, or post your comments and feature preferences under one of his posts. You can find him here https://steemit.com/@heimindanger
2
Recovering your account is NOT impossible. The steem blockchain offers special functionality for that considering its architecture. Meaning while you should always protect your password lie crazy, there are several safety mechanisms built in to prevent you forever losing your account. One is the "introduceyourself post" that many Steem users value highly. It proves to the community that you really own your account, and if there is ever arguments about who owns the account the community will help the actual user get his access back after a logout. So if you haven't yet, I recommend making such an introduceyourself post (first tag #introduceyourself) to have that extra safety anchor for the future and let other steemians know you exist.
Your account recovery will work in tandem with the one who created your account, most often that is Steemit itself.
3
while we are at the key-confusion - I feel ya when you say it is complicated. the learning curve here is very steep, though this does have its own advantages on many levels.
I will make it easy: Never use your password!
It is the MASTERKEY to all you do on steemit. And we have these other keys specifically to make the system more secure.
The best tutorial series I have come across is made by another Steem user, 
Watch his tutorial series, one each day and you will know your way around in no time. Day 1 features the passwords, and why you want to use a password manager for Steemit, as well as the reasons why you want to sign in to Steemit EXCLUSIVELY with your "private posting key" (for posting and voting) or your "private active key" (for all matters related to your steem wallet). The "password" should not ever be used because it is your emergency anchor giving you full control over your account (posting, voting, wallet stuff AND changing the password). And if you never use it hackers cannot steel it from you easily.
The excellent tutorial series with day 1 can be found here:
Don't try to get it all at once, just take little steps every day.
4
There is no need yet to grasp all the mechanisms of money on here. You can simply focus on posting good content and regularly visiting your wallet (top right corner, click on your icon, then click on wallet) to power up your Steem. No need to ever worry about the price or anything if you don't want to. More Steempower simply means your upvote weight increases and you earn more Steem on upvoting others. Much like shares in a company mean greater say.
SBD (steem backed dollars) can easily be converted to Steem. Steem can be "locked in" to Steem for more influence, becoming Steem power. It will become much clearer if you don't despair, just leave the money aspects out for now - they are not required to do a great job on steemit.
5
For all the early growing pains and steep learning curve, there are good reasons to put in the work in Steem now. Most notably the reason is that Steemit is still very young (and in beta), so any presence freethinkers like us can build here NOW will be worth so much more reach in a few years once the majority of people have heard about Steemit and leave facebook and themtube.
Imagine it as a new blank slate network starting out. Whenever new people in the future come on to the network and start searching for things like "conspiracy" "podcast" "geoengineering" etc. they will come across YOUR established work and follow you.
Meaning we now have a great window of laying the groundwork here, before the "competition" gets too much - competition as in the amount of posts dealing with such similar topics. For now most things like that have not been thoroughly touched here, and the more value you can offer in different fields, the more successful your steemit story will become.
6
One "misconception" I had when I started is: Posting good quality content is enough. It isn't.
I want to motivate both of you to not solely rely on your great content that you have, posting it here and hoping for a large following. Instead, I found it VERY beneficial to just post my content, and let it speak for itself. But then going on to other people's work and posts and dropping a knowledgeable comment for THEM.
Like I am doing here: you read this comment and will most likely check out my blog. Instead of stumbling upon one of my posts randomly and deciding to follow.
You "have" to make networks happen on here, and it's a great "rule" to drop a comment underneath any post you have read or watched, letting others know you exist and adding value to the post by you mentioning a new idea, constructive criticism and so on. Also, comment back on every comment you get, unless there is nothing more to say.
A few lines will be quite enough to, no need for huge novels like I am doing here ;)
Commenting on other's stuff will get you that quality following of ACTUAL people who love your work.
Post less, comment more is what I'm saying!
7
Disregard bot comments and spam. They will subside the more actual readers you can build a network with. I recommend ignoring these comments completely - no upvoting them no commenting on them, just focus on genuine people commenting and comment back. You could also flag comments so they get hidden but that will take away from your voting power that you have to spend here on upvotes every day. I prefer upvoting stuff I like instead of flagging stuff I don't like.
8
I have been activist for the Zeitgeist movement for years, telling people about the problems with fiat money and the eventual full-on slavery through a digital money society.
That said I thoroughly see the benefits and merits of some crypto currencies that exist after studying this like crazy for months. I used to see it like you - that this can't all be good really because we are moving into a cashless society. However, it's not quite as simple. Maybe I should do a post on that, cause this comment is way too long already.
Let me just say: If you feel suspicious about the whole crypto space - don't invest dollars. Just earn your steem on the side without much focus on it, and leave it laying around. There will come a day when you see what it actually offers for freeing people and then you will already have amassed a considerable amount.
Other coins like Ripple and possibly Bitcoin have long been hijacked, if not even set up by the controllers for us to tap into. But judging all crypto on that assumption does not withstand deeper investigation, but is understandable when just starting out of course.
9
I have always made it my mission to find the catch on things I get into. Took me a month after hearing about it to find the largest catches with the globe model, 18 months to find the catches in the popular flat earth Azimuthal model, and after 4 months I do have some candidates for the catch on Steemit. Meaning I pay close attention to what this place is doing and what dangers to free speech might be lurking on the horizon. I prioritize building a free thinker network with people who also keep a close watch on these things. If we have evidence that steem is a trap, we will have to move on. but until then, it is the best place I have found for building honest and authentic networks with people who care.
10
Stop wondering about "matrix people" following you. not everyone starts out questioning everything, and if you do not wish to connect with "cat video" people - don't. You could also enjoy them following you to maybe catch some new ideas they had never considered, but there is no need for you to follow them back if they offer no value or interest to you. Once again: commenting on other people's high quality stuff YOU really enjoy will make that ACTUAL network build all by itself. And there are A LOT of awesome free thinekrs on here whose company you would really enjoy.
11
Don't browse steemit. The trending page is often littered with low quality posts due to the existence of bid bots. Instead I recommend clicking the search glass in the top right, and searching steemit for your tag. And simply browse through the articles coming up. I often sort it by "recent" and wrie a comment to the article or dtube video I enjoyed, enlarging the quality network.
Specific searches have been very good for my tribe building, and takes less time than to mindlessly browse through the "trending" or "new" tab, seeing stuff that doesn't interest me.
Whoa sorry that was long. But I enjoyed the interview, am thrilled both of you are here and that I can help you through the beginning phases until you have built a tribe you begin to get really fond of.
would love to chat sometime Mike, we could make such an awesome FE discussion happen, as there are some angles I see discussed nowhere so far, which saddens me a bit. But one thing at a time, if you ever have any questions about this place just comment and I will do my best to point you to some answers.
Want to take this opportunity to thank you again for all your hard work Mike. I am thrilled to be able now to give back to you at least a BIT. Let me know whenever you have issues, I will be there.
More freethinkers to Steemit!
RE: Mike Williams (Sage of Quay) on the P2BP Podcast with host Michael Joseph