You made some great points here. I have the very same sensation when I look at other blockchain projects and mostly come to the conclusion that our problem is a lack of leadership. Steem as a brand has never really been defined and built up, and it's not recognized as a serious project in the blockchain community.
Steem is not a relevant player in the market anymore, and that doesn't have anything to do with the quality of our product. It's rather a self-marketing and lobbying issue.
I'm not sure if we're able to fix that belatedly, but if so, then this would be my vision for Steem:
Become the no. 1 social blockchain and host of decentralized communities in the world.
To me communities (if provided with a professional set up like Hivemind) are the absolute unique selling proposition for Steem.
More detailes are described in this post.
It doesn't help that Steem is changing also. It is difficult to pin it down. When I began it was about blogging. Now that seems to be in the past especially for new people joining.
I think the community tools that were promised a long time ago would help to give it direction.
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