Steemit has some main problems that are preventing it from really flying:

 Account creation costs money or takes a few days
 Social media sites are shadowing links to Steemit content
 People are too influenced by the ability to make money
 There is no incentive to create high quality content that appeals to non-Steemit users
 Rewards are not consistent
 Some toxic community members may turn users off
 There is no real reason for users to stick around beyond interacting with the community and possibly making a little money from their posts

Out of all of these issues, it's really 1 and 7 that are the worst. The other ones are definitely an issue, but the real problem is that waiting a week for an account just so you can post your blog that nobody will read is not attractive to most people.