It's been a little over a day since I was introduced to SteemIt. I've had time to test the waters with a post, do some commenting to feel out the community a bit, and obsessively research anything I could find regarding what makes SteemIt better or worse than anything else floating around in the Crypto universe right now. I've been floored by the support this community has for one another but I'm going to wait to gush about that until later in the post. The first thing I want to say about SteemIt (and Steem itself) is that I'm 100% sure it's here to stay and it will do nothing but go up over the next few years. So here you go, SteemIt... 100% UpVote. More importantly, here is why:
I must confess that when I heard about SteemIt I was highly skeptical, but the business model is a brilliant combination of short term rewards alongside huge incentives for long term investment. The holy trinity of Steem, Steem Power, and Steem Dollars was initially confusing but after a little research and some enlightening conversations I see the strength behind it. For anyone who may be as confused as I was... here is the simplest version of the system that I can come up with.
That's a cool picture I found on google, btw.
When people upvote your post they are dipping into a reward pool and giving you a tiny piece of it. What you are receiving is going to be 50% Steem Power and 50% Steam Dollars.
The more Steem Power you accumulate, the more of that sweet reward pool honey you can tap into and give to other people when you upvote their posts. You can even activate beast mode, AKA Power Up, and convert all of your post rewards into Steem Power so that you just keep gaining more influence over the reward pool. If you decide to cash out and convert your Steem Power into Steem currency, then it will take a total of 13 weeks at a rate of 1 payout per week to divest all of your earnings.
Steem Dollars, the other half of your reward for posting good content or comments, are the price-stable unit that's worth about $1. In fact, the system is designed to make sure that each Steem Dollar stays around $1 and does not fluctuate too high or too low. You can hold them for a return or sell/transfer them for other currency.
There is an obvious reason for needing to understand these components, as they're how we get paid for our content and participation. More importantly, they are the surface level element of a very intelligent system full of checks and balances in order to keep Steem stable and avoid widespread system abuse. This also puts the power in the hands of the users and encourages long term participation.
Obviously not my meme, but it's clearly amazing.
The paid social media aspect of SteemIt is super, got it. But other than that what makes Steem so special when compared to other crytpocurrencies? The answer to that is probably the simplest and most common sense part of Steem. It's also why more of the average population (who know next to nothing about cryptocurrencies) will flock to something like Steem...
It's EASY. So easy that you don't need an initial investment to participate, which is probably the number one reason new people will eagerly sign up. So easy that there aren't any issues with ridiculous transactions fees, which is probably the second reason people will be all over it. When the rest of the world starts to jump on the cryptocurrency train, which is inevitable, then the currencies that are the most consumer friendly are going to gain the largest following. I'm talking about the people who know NOTHING about crytptocurrency beyond the occasional news broadcast about Bitcoin. When they cross over to our digital playground they are going to be looking for something simple. SteemIt simple. SteemIt is targeting the part of the population that's infatuated with Social media right now but their long term plan will most likely reach out to various demographics through stuff like an independent online marketplace, which will open even more doors to the general population.
This post is getting too long, so I want to end it by pointing out another critical component to the success of Steem... the community. Since I signed up yesterday I have been stunned by the positivity and encouragement that I've witnessed. Not only that, but I've talked to people that prove this community is reaching way beyond the boundaries of a simple blog. There is an entire group of Steemians running a radio station, https://mspwaves.com/, introduced to me by 
Atlas out. Mic drop. Boom goes the dynamite.