I feel like I'm noticing a trend. It seems like the Investor/Entrepreneur/Builder class on Steem is pretty bullish and excited about Steems future, but the user class, the people that actually just want to use these applications for what they are seemingly designed for, not so much.

This makes perfect sense to me and looking at things objectively it's exactly what I would expect. I won't pretend I'm not emotionally invested in Steem, I am, but if I really thought this place was doomed, I'd power down tomorrow, buy some Bitcoin and let that be that for a few years. That said, my attitude toward Steem, isn't emotional it's logical.

What could realistically KILL Steem.

• Steemit Inc. dying. I know a lot of people think it would still keep going after that and I know that technically it wouldn't be game over, but my opinion is that practically it would be game over.

• Slowly every single user, entrepreneur, developer, etc leaving one by one until it's just a dead chain.

• The coin going to zero or practically zero.

Maybe there are other things but those are the things I think about. So from the outside looking in, it seems like Steemit Inc. is getting by. SMT's are in testnet. They paused their programmatic selling, they're all around doing better than before. I wouldn't give them an A+, but they're at a solid B- in my book.

People are leaving, people are coming, I've seen and met brand new people, some friends that left have come back and some are leaving. That's what it is, but I don't feel we're in any danger of totally dead activity.

I know too many people that would just buy all the Steem if the price kept going down, hell, I would, so while the price going incredibly low is scary for the reason that it may be less enticing for developers to build here, I feel there is enough demand for it that it won't be going to zero.

On the flipside, if I ask

What could realistically skyrocket Steem?

• A huge overall crypto bull run.

• Someone developing an amazing application that creates value beyond financial rewards.

• It continues to not die and slowly improve.

With these, I think another overall crypto bull run is an inevitability. Who knows when it will come, but I believe it definitely will come. Lots of people are building things, most of them don't have the resources to compete with centralized alternatives, but the longer Steem exists, the more chances people will get to take their shot. Steems progress has been slower than any of us have been comfortable with, but it has all been in the upward direction. HF 20 was an improvement, HF 21(22) was a dramatic improvement. Steem Engine and tribes, with their flaws, are an improvement. We might not be making huge leaps and bounds, but we are moving forward, and we've learned how to survive in the worst of conditions. I believe Communities will be an improvement, I believe SMT's will be an improvement, and once we finally have those two long awaited things behind us, we'll be on to the next innovation. As long as we don't die, we will keep moving forward, even if slowly.

That said, currently, the applications are not there. They aren't ready for mass adoption and they pale in comparison to their centralized counterparts in terms of functionality, user experience, and ease of use. People that just want to use the applications ie, using one of the blogging frontends to actually blog, will have to either put up with a far worse level of functionality and user experience or they will leave. The people that are here now found something else that kept them here, maybe friends and the community, maybe the crypto, whatever, but if all you wanted to do was create an amazing blog and have lots of people see it and engage with it, we can't deliver that yet. Things are slowly improving, but it's still a long ways off.

As a quick aside for all my 3D art peeps on here who like Blender, I see Steem as a sort of kindred spirit to Blender. Blender is a free open source 3D application where you can make things like the stuff I post all the time, only...it's FREE. It's open source and while it's development obviously couldn't move at the pace of a billion dollar company like the ones that create the industry standard packages, it just didn't die, and kept moving forward. Today Blender is extremely powerful. It's been used in feature films, on TV and it's still growing and improving, now at an even faster rate. I think Steem in the WORST case scenario, would do this. What's more likely though is that every few years we'll get a nitrus boost from an overall crypto market boom where everything will explode and everything we are doing currently will be able to be done with MUCH more resources and because of that, in much less time.

Think about how many more dolphins, and orcas there are now, and how varied the interests are among them. In the event of another bull run, there will be so many more communities that can thrive and be supported, not to mention they'd now have tools to branch off and create their own tokens and interfaces. With the additional resources a bull run would bring from where we are now, I think the growth would be exponential, and while it might hurt in the meantime, if we get communities and SMT's BEFORE the next bull run, Steem will be stacked to the brim with potential and whenever that bull run does come, it will be a whole new ball game.

That's how I see things, and why I'm that glowing yellow ball up there.

P.S. This was a fun image to make. I made the happy and sad face balls, then turned the sad face ones into particles and poured them into a bowl.

Once I found an interesting angle I manually placed the happy ball, and manually rotated some of the sad faces.