It's so wonderful to see you writing now. I still remember meeting you in 2016, and still have the video interview i did (which Ned forced me to remove from YouTube.)
I agree with everything you said. Greed, envy, sloth, anger and I will add an addiitonal one: revenge. The revenge part that is mixed with bots and downvoting was particularly damaging to the platform.
I have a lot to say about how social platforms should be run. Firstly ,they should be designed, iterated on and built by social people who understand social needs. so whatever you are building now, I would advise you to consult and partner with people who are not only smart, but who are highly social creatures, too. They know what works and what doesn't and they should be in the position to help guide the design.

Building systems in isolation or just with some vague notion of "normal social people" is misguided. I have spent a lot of time thinking about why Steem didn't reach the success it should have and I want to stress to you the importance of the following things:

1. New accounts should be free.
2. Social media projects should have a mobile app (both android and ios) right out of the gate.
3. Account creation should be so simple that a monkey can do it.
4. Accounts should be created via Twitter or Google API logins.
5. An expert social media team needs to be part of your team at the very beginning.

Please also consider the fact that no matter how good your coding is, if you embark on this new project without social media experts on your team, your results will be mediocre. Existing social media experts can translate your ideas to normal people. This means, you need a well-organized social media team (twitter, instagram, facebook, youtube) right out of the gate, with regular updates to a Medium account as well.

I would also add that choosing the right people is what is needed more than anything. We all realize Ned was a snake. I knew this from the first moment I interviewed him. There was something fishy about the way he dodged my questions. He seemed slippery, fake and elusive. And this was in 2016.

I am excited about your new project, but I want to stress my points above. I have some ideas about this because I have been experimenting (just as a user) with many different designs myself. There is one project that I hope you have the time to interact with because it's a successful project that was inspired by Steem. It's called Newlife.ai. They currently have about 20,000 users. I use it daily because I enjoy it and it's creative.

I hope that you take the time to understand how it works. You should also realize that the referral system they have works very well too, and it's all determined by an algorithm, a community-run algorithm, and they have very innovative aspects like UCI (Universal Creator Income) which is coming. It is of course not perfect, but it's highly addictive, was started some years ago, and it also is a superior experience because they have perfected some aspects of social media. It's very much worth studying. NOthing is perfect, but if we learn what works for humans and what doesn't, then we can be smarter about what to build in the future.

I am glad to see you writing here because I remember thinking how bright a mind you have. I still have that video I think it's in private mode bc Ned forced me to remove it from Youtube. I want to show it to you sometime, maybe privately, as I am not sure you ever saw it.
More than anything, I am so happy to read this from you. Don't stop sharing with us.