I am someone who joined Steem, left and came back. As someone who is still new to the environment I have to still say that I am confused, and that is one fo teh problems that Steem still has.
People join to either earn money (through steem) or to express themselves. If you joined to earn, it can start off getting confusing about how to do it. I still am confused about that. It has to become clearer and possibly simpler (or at least better explained) We need something within Steem itself that will attract people to the platform,even if they do not earn anything. There also has to be a clear path to earning. I have posted and replied many times where I expected to earn steem and got nothing, but have also commented or just upvoted something for the sake of just adding and earned on those. There is not a clear path as far as I understand.
If I want to earn Bitcoin, I can trade on an exchange (same with steem here) Other coins (POS) I can stake and people understand how these work, but POB can be viable if it makes more sence to people about how it works.
I will probably write a separate article about my thoughts on this later because this potentially could get too long to read as just a reply here. If I want to display my ignorance about what steem does and how it works, I might as well publish it for all to find and see.