I read through the entirety of it, and I think you are right, as always :) Surprise! .... Maybe not so surprising? :thinking emoji:

Steemit is VERY difficult to parse for the average new user. I have had to hand hold a few new comers through DM sessions over discord to make sure that the platform retain these new talents. But I dont think this is doable over larger numbers of new joiners. Even mentoring a few takes a lot of my time as they don't understand anything about the gamification aspects of the platform. Some of them come from the rewards aspect, but not all, interestingly.

Some come for the appeal of joining a smaller platform in where they can still get noticed. And yet, Steemit has the habit of confusing the bejeezus out of new people. Why one post gets upvoted and the next post which is even better does not? What is Steem Power? What is Resource Credits? The recent ads-heavy interface of the main Steemit page does not help the average user experience, either, I think.

Anyway, your solutions sound like they would address the problems as you have identified, so I'm hopeful the movers and shakers should read this and take notes :D

As for me, I have to say that engagement IS super difficult on Steemit, and oddly I've been having better engagement at the bigger and more established social media places. Which is counterintuitive to having a smaller platform's appeal of being able to get noticed easier....

PS. Thanks again for all your help and posts about PALNET, @midlet :D I've staked my PALcoins and I'm going to continue to use palnet.io and support it \o/ It's one good thing that is happening on the platform at the moment and I'm happy about it :D :D :D