very, very good! Yes, totally so!
I am sometimes amazed about the fact and now I got a probable answer that there are more content creators than consumers.
edit: the biggest hurdle to take is that you just cannot comment on an article if you are not a full member of steemit. While elsewhere the hurdles became smaller (as in private blogs) you don't have to register to comment it's a nuisance to read something without being logged in just because to follow the wish to add something to a writers work. Yes, Newbies are not treated very good. What I observed as well is that a recruiting machinery has taken place for them in order to fulfill the "gaining followers" business. Some have real good attitudes but mostly it's business. That's the world we live in.
I ran a Wordpress blog myself for quite some time and I haven't got so much readers but with those I had some long exchanges and really engaged debates in the comment section of my blog. And new ones came along every day. I felt it was much more lively compared with my steemit blogsite. And a lot more user-friendly:)
Probably nowadays I would have more difficulties as times changed and my appearance in the searching machines would be very unlikely on the first page.
Here, I often am faced with emptiness. That is frustrating and I am so happy you mentioned some estimated reasons for that.
My blog was a single theme one and not meeting the taste of the general public. I served a niche topic.
This whole scene is still a tiny one and behind the scenes there is a lot of networking and forming communities. This is, from my observation, much more important than the content itself. It's like in the gold rush times where claims have to be put in the ground first and negotiations with people how to work the land and build cities around the claims is of greater importance.
I guess one has to have a lot of patience before steemit becomes something more closely to a consuming platform. Here, you have entrepreneurs who want to sell their ideas and products to other entrepreneurs. But if all the people are producers and business people they miss those who buy their goods & services. So, yes, I guess you are quite right with your observations!
edit: and yes, you are quite right about newbies who are often treated badly. They are often "welcomed" for the purpose of gaining a followers base, which is a business attempt. It's also a nuisance in wanting to comment an article from the outside because you have to become a full member of the platform to be able to comment. This is a huge hurdle compared to other platforms, in particular private blogs where you don't even have to register anymore to leave a comment.
Well, although I know the platform, I was never a regular Wordpress writer, I think I once wrote a couple of articles for a column belonging to a group of libertarians from Colombia, but I did not have time to write for them, so I did not use the platform much. But the little time I used the platform I liked.
I have also been able to visit other pages where content is published, but with another function different from Steemit. In Argentina, for example, they have a page that allows uploading content to everyone who registers, but some users, who meet certain requirements, are paid in Bitcoin for the articles they write. The great thing is that it was not always like that, the community was created first, and then, over the years, they introduced the reward feature so that some writers could get some money.
But being honest, of the pages I've visited, Steemit is the one that has the greatest growth opportunity, but it's like you say, getting a Steemit account should be somewhat less bureaucratic than it is now, so that more users can join , no one will wait 1 or 2 weeks to receive approval of your account.