I want to know how you feel about the Steemit as a social media here you are rewarded for posting your ideas, your comments your videos your pictures all depending on the amount and quality of votes that your post attracts. At first, when I heard of it I thought as most people will, and because in fact the concept of a paying social media was already out there with a lot of scammy sites having developed before Steemit even came out, I figured Steemit would also be a scam.
I heard of it through an e-book I bought I read and just figured it was not worth the effort but after a few days I decided I would try it, and like all other projects I enter I posted a few low grade articles got scarcely any votes as was the logical thing and again stopped using the site. But somehow I came back and I got the attention, well at least the pity votes of a few large accounts and all of a sudden I had an article just as lousy as all I had posted up to then with a reward of about $20.00, so this time I was hooked.
I got the I have to level up worm and also the push to become a minnow, but along this road Steem lost a lot of value I started again getting very little votes and I became dissatisfied and decided to quit, I powered down and sold most of my Steem, at a bad timing too, because first of all I changed all the SBD to Steem and lost out on $15.00 SBD, and then I sold most of my Steem at a low price, when I could have waited to sell it at 5,6,7 or even 8 dollars each. Well sometimes I act on impulse, and I lose out big time. In hind sight I shouldnt have sold any Steem, but the circumstances at that moment required me to do it. The only mitigating factor I have is that 
But I guess everyone agrees Steemit was no scam you could actually make money here, not easily and probably you had to game it a little but money was being made. But here is as far as the concept got, it has too many flaws, first of all the reward pool is limited so even with all this noise about attracting the masses the question is how? You attract them because they can make money here but the more people that come the less they will make because the reward pool is static. Right now it is shared by maybe 5,000 people who all complain about how little they make, imagine if that number were several millions.
No, Steemit did not work out as it was planned, in fact I can remember when even thinking about ads on Steemit was taboo, it would be a sell out and now many of those who were most against it are its greatest fans. Steemit Inc. has to have an income or else it won't pay its bills, so they have to have ads, another proof that the Steemit concept is not financially viable. Ok I never saw the problem with ads but the decentralized people did, and I have news for them nothing in this world is decentralized, except maybe some primitive tribe completely isolated from the rest of humanity.
So now we have the idea that Steem is not just Steemit, even though it started being just that, but things change and the talk has to change. Now the Steem blockchain is in reality the home of countless apps of which Steemit is only a small and not even that important a part. We have game apps, video apps, all sorts of apps. But there is a problem, for example the gambling apps, yes they prosper for a while but then when the house starts raising its profit and the users go because all they do is lose the app just peters out.
The most successful apps right now I think are ACTIFIT and Splinterlands. But Splinterlands will also get into trouble sooner or later, it depends on people buying cards and eventually the big spenders will get tired of it, will run out of money for cards, or they will simply quit the game and try to sell their cards and then Splinterlands value will probably go down, I hope not but I think this is a very likely outcome. Even now they have to come up with ever more new cards to keep the game running.
The video apps for all the hype are nowhere near Youtube level, and I don't think they will ever even come close to it, they will stay small niche video sites like there are a lot all over the web. And now we have the Steem savers SMTs and communities, it could be but I seriously doubt it, I think they are just another hype and in this case a possible hype because they haven't even come alive, they are like the hard forks each one is going to save the project but they just botch things up even more.
But there are some good ideas I like Steem Engine because it makes me feel like I am an investor (which of course I am not) and I think a few of these tribe tokens could be worth a lot in the future. In fact I think most of the apps being created on the Steem blockchain are good ideas, what I don't think is a good idea is this obsession with destroying the current social medias like Facebook etc, it is not going to happen, it might eventually implode and Steemit could be one of the first to try to take that step but things will have to change a lot for that to happen.
So do I think Steemit or Steem are doomed? far from it I just don't think they will become as large or as big trend setters as it seems many people here think. Of course this could all change if Steem all of a sudden were to moon and go to $8.00 levels that might straighten some things out. But I see no reason for it to do so, except if it is an artificial pump.
That is what I think, I am usually wrong so we will have to wait and see. I do think 2020 will be a pivotal year for the crypto world, I think we will see many changes and hopefully a lot of good coming from the use of the blockchain and crypotcurrencies.