Other than an anonymous account, there is no privacy on the steem blockchain--by design. That is the point of a transparent system like Steem. So if someone is worried about privacy and protection on Facebook, Steem is really not an option and it is not intended to be an option. So the fact that people will pay for privacy, is not a reason why people will pay to be on Steem. Also, for people to be willing to pay to play on Steem, it will have to be better than alternatives, but the user interfaces of the Steem frontends and apps, combined with all of the limitations of the blockchain, especially now with RCs, combined with the hierarchy caused by proof of stake and the extreme complexity and seemingly counterintuitive nature of all of the rules, means that it is not obviously (or at least immediately) better than any other alternative. There has been a lot of discussion about censorship on centralized systems, yet on Steem one slightly powerful user can, in effect, censor another for any arbitrary reason. Sure, you might argue that it just buries the post, but the psychological effect on users is to keep a low profile--that's not an attitude that is conducive to open conversation.

Part of the issue here is the schizophrenic goals of Steem: it is both a cryptocurrency and a content platform, but Bitcoin shows us that a successful crypto does not require a tie-in with a content platform. The end result is that rules that boost Steem as a currency (such as all the bots and vote-selling) are actually counterproductive when it comes to Steem as a content platform. As a content platform, Steem needs to shift to proof-of-brain--something that StackExchange and others like it are doing much better at without decentralization or paying contributors.

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