Nice assessment.

Re: "We have already shown we are not very good at keeping new users with a user retention rate of 5-8% at best. "

If by "user retention" we mean account continued activity, there are a lot of factors to contemplate,
one of them is, of course, what kind of users are being attracted to steemit and what are their intentions towards the platform.

In an environment where a large fraction of incoming users are here to abuse the platform a low "user retention rate" is appropriate, it means the abusers are being worn down and driven out by one mean or another.

I mean, those abusing users that cleaners (including yourself of course) hunt, and then end up leaving the platform are a part of the "user retention rate".

In short, in my opinion the onboarding process should focus on onboarding actual quality content producers instead of bodies with a pulse.

Regards,
Walden