Over the last weeks I've been busy with a new, awesome family member, so I actually almost completely missed out on the HF20 issues and following discussions, just managed to read @steemitblog and the updates of the witnesses I follow.

HF20, huh?!

It's been very interesting to watch the conversation about how Steemit Inc. managed the roll-out of HF20; as far as I can tell there is kind of a consensus that from a technical perspective, HF20 is actually bringing value.

However, it's really baffling how weird the communication between the most important stakeholders of Steem, Steemit Inc. and the active witnesses, seems to be. Are there regular (virtual) meetings? Are they actually being asked and included in the planning / development of the software? From what I could read so far, it rather seems like a lot of the communication is being held publicly (which may not necessarily be a bad thing, but it's inefficient, to say the least) and indirectly.

Anyway, maybe a little more digging will enlighten me a little more, or I might engage in some discussions on Discord or elsewhere.

Curious to see whether HF20 will actually bring the anticipated results. I expect a lot of new signups and maybe (drumroll) some marketing by Steemit if they are convinced that the scalability issues with new accounts are now solved.

Oh, and is it true that the SBD are being issued again? I read that the max debt ratio has been increased, and it seems it's already taking effect, seeing that more people are paying for votes etc. with SBD.

Steem UA

So far, I haven't stuck to the plan to post more after joining / delegating to @steem-ua. This definitely isn't the fault of Steem UA or the guys (especially @scipio); I've been having a great time on Discord, even if it was overall pretty short. I've also been receiving my upvotes from @steem-ua, even though they were kinda small due to my poor UA score (I'm ranked 111501st, hooray!). I actually like that you're getting hints from @steem-ua with the upvotes; I'd just wish for a little more specifics as to how one can promote their content rather than just saying that you should do it. Maybe I should engage with the respective people on Discord again, but let's see whether I'm gonna have enough time for that.

Steempeak / Partiko

I've been trying to use @steempeak more (and I'm using it right now), but somehow I keep getting back to Steemit as a default on desktop, even though Steempeak offers a better UX. On mobile, I use @partiko which works quite well and has this nice additional gamification (points system) built-in that motivates you to interact more via the app. It's a bit unfortunate, though, that you only get upvotes for posts made via the app, which is obviously a bit clumsy if you want to produce quality content on your mobile phone.

Does anybody know what the business model of alternative skins like Steempeak or Partiko is? Ads (at some point)? Donations? I wonder why so comparatively many people are building stuff for Steem - which is great - where it's entirely unclear to me how they will ever make money.

In any case, over the last couple of weeks there's been a lot of stuff for new posts coming up so I hope I can keep up with posting (and receiving feedback from the UA community), because it's still fun.

Read you soon!