I've been reading around about Steemit being the new Facebook by some people, and I'd like to go into a little detail on whether or not Steemit can reach that amount of popularity.
Current Users
Facebook currently has 1.86 billion active users. The social media giant also hasn't showed signs of slowing down growth either.
Steemit on the other hand only has 255,000 registered accounts, according to steemd. Last month, Steemit hit 180,000 accounts, which is about a 42% increase in one month. That is a huge increase, but it is not nearly on the level of facebook.
At this rate, it would take about 4.95 years to reach the level of Facebook's active users. That seems pretty achievable as long as Steemit can keep increasing the amount of registered users.
With some marketing, this goal could be achieved much sooner.
There's just one problem with trying to attain this goal:
Steemit is Very Complicated
For me, the hardest obstacle to face is how to get the average person to fully understand Steemit. I like to think I'm pretty good with technology, and Steemit took me a while to fully understand. On the other hand, my mom or grandma, who are both avid Facebook users, would have a much harder time trying to understand the premise of Steemit.
I've tried to get a lot of people I know to join Steemit, but many refuse to do so because they just don't understand how it works and don't want to spend a lot of time trying to understand it all.
The Blockchain is Complicated
To understand how the premise of Steemit works, you'd also have to have a grasp on how the blockchain works.
According to blockchain.info, there are about 15,000,000 blockchain wallet users. If everyone with a blockchain wallet joined Steemit, assuming that every Steemit user has a blockchain wallet, the amount of Steemit users would still be 0.8% of what Facebook has in active users.
Steemit is in beta
This is one of the more obvious reasons. Steemit is in beta, and there's still some stuff to work out before Steemit becomes public.
I posted some suggestions I had here
Tl;dr
- Notifications for upvotes, resteems, and follows
- Follower tracking (clicking another user's profile and knowing on their page whether or not they follow you)
- Resteem counts on posts
- Full list of upvoters on the post itself
- Ability to filter out tags
So basically most things that you can do on Steemd or another third party site but not on Steemit itself.
Facebook is Integrated into Almost Everything
When was the last time you played a game without it asking you to login to your Facebook account? Facebook is everywhere and almost everyone you know has one. Steemit is much less popular, and to be able to reach the level of Facebook, it would have to expand more as a social media site and less as a blogging site
Steemit Doesn't Have an Official Mobile App
When looking at the analytics of Facebook, 94% of Facebook users are active on the Facebook app.
In order to become as big as Facebook, Steemit must develop a mobile app. 77% of Americans and 92% of Americans aged 18-29 own smartphones, so there should be some demand for an app.
Steemit incentives are much greater
Here's where I analyze the strengths of Steemit's platform.
There is nothing that Facebook does that Steemit doesn't have the potential to do
Facebook's only real incentive is that everybody has all of their friends using it. Steemit, on the other hand, rewards users with Steem, and provides real monetary incentives.
Facebook also tracks a lot from their users, which is the main reason I deleted my Facebook app in the first place. Facebook makes all its money from ad revenue, and gives nothing back to its users, while Steemit rewards its best users through the reward pool. Facebook also uses its cookies and apps to track everything you do, which is why people have started searching for an alternative.
Steemit also allows its users to join the exciting new market of cryptocurrency. With the market for crypto booming in the last couple months, Steemit allows an easier way to join the world of crypto and learn more about it. For example, I've learned a lot about different cryptocurrencies on Steemit that I might never have heard of anywhere else, which has allowed me to make some investing decisions.
What Do You Think?
Can Steemit become as popular as Facebook? Only time will really tell, but it's definitely possible!