End-User Retention - Does it matter anymore?

in #investment6 years ago (edited)

Is this an Elephant in the room or a misconception on my part?


If you have been following me, you know I have been stating the business case for Steem via SteemIt, has been

It is all about the eyes.



My vision for Steem's growth has been about advertisers seeking eye balls.  My thought was it didn't matter whether or not SteemIt, Inc wanted to support and attract advertisers.  If we had enough users and activity they would come anyway.  They could start accounts, buy Steem and post. Consider Pizza hut, they could post coupons, free pizza, the typical things advertiser do.  If we had enough eyes they could buy more Steem to combat flags, and perhaps easily buy into being able to vote their own witnesses.

However with the future looking like we are moving more towards a platform designed like ETH's model.  I can't see how end-users really play into that model.  In this case the revenue stream comes from token launches and Steem being bought to basically power up your community.

What I am missing in this latest round of fighting about flags and end-user enjoyment, does it really matter anymore?

Just as no one advertiser could reach out to ETH's end-users, it is pretty difficult to see how any one advertiser would cross multiple front-ends and communities to get to the end users.

I am not really seeing why a push to retain or gather new-users at this point is beneficial.

Please tell me how I am wrong.

@whatsup


Previous posts about SteemIt's ability to attract new users.

https://steemit.com/investment/@whatsup/this-post-is-only-to-earn-money-and-bloat-the-blockchain

https://steemit.com/random/@whatsup/where-people-gather-an-economy-develops-it-is-all-about-the-eyes

Sort:  

I think you are saying that the introduction of SMTs are a strategic shift in the growth path of Steem and in this shift user retention has not been the leading metric when making that decision.

But I don't have a clear prediction on how things will change with that shift, only time will tell.

So far I do not think Steemit is for everyone... it is far too much work to keep it going for most. So those that come in to make a quick buck, loose interest quickly... while some burn out just trying to achieve certain levels.

I think that if and when the SMT's come out, it will be good for Steem, but I see many a people here building and concentrating more on their own platforms than here and especially not both.

A question that I have not heard addressed yet also is if you have your WordPress site working with the future SMT's, will that build reputation on Steemit. If it does not and people can still earn Steem on their own site, they will leave.

Instead of moving toward ETH, maybe it is more like EOS.

Lets face it Steemit is a great (Steem/Digital Asset) building platform for some, but it is hard to maintain both... and I do not see it as a way to market themselves. Steemit is anti marketing from what I see, so with a base of users that are advertiser adverse there are many questions as if anyone will stay.

Solid thought provoking article, thanks for putting this together.

There have to be frontend users that advertisers want to reach. So I do believe retention is critical. SMT is going to be a benefit but it sounds like there are some developments here on Steemit such as communities and Oracles that would do a lot to illustrate how SMT can translate for applications/communities/websites that are already in existence.

I am optimistic about the next 4-6 months of Steemit/SMT/Steem ecosystem developments. This platform needs to be a strong example of the potential of Steem so that larger potential adopters can relate it to how they manage content/ads/eyeballs.

The front-end users will be spread among the various applications on the Steem Blockchain, not in any one reachable place. Traffic (which has been growing overall) would be diluted to the multiple applications.

So, if I get what you are saying this would become a Proof of Concept Application. I agree with that. We don't need many users to point at that.

I am not complaining, and I am optimistic, but just wonder if we should change the vision and focus.

Yeah agree on these points. Only thing I'd add would be that currently no other applications/sites are competing with Steemit traffic yet as I believe? I don't think they'd even be competitive collectively - is that something you track?

I'm working on an article that addresses some of these concepts right now. I hope to have it finished by the weekend but we'll see. You've given me some new ideas to think about though so thats good.

advertisers attention Steemit should gain more and more active users,loose interest quickly... while some burn out just trying to achieve certain levels.

@whatsup,
Today I had an argument at FB Group about Steem! One guy said Steem supplied a lot of coins so it can be grow like other coins do! But I have confidence on this coin! And with SMT it might rise and rise and we will loose all free earnings in future as well! So Steem is about to moon! We must prepare for it!

Cheers~

Hmm

And with SMT it might rise and rise and we will loose all free earnings in future as well!

When the price of the STEEM token goes up in outside market-value, the internal Dollar-value will go up as well. Most likely that will be a driving element to accelerate user growth and user retention.

DQmTdfgkagXpQRqm8npBurCDTGA6duaBdLdWcUQiHV5ELKJ_1680x8400 (1).png

Good question, my friend. I think that for advertisers in any case it's better when there are a lot of users, so they are interested in expanding the audience. The more coverage of advertising, the better for advertisers! Thank you @whatsup

nice post, well i think steemit is great for advertiser's even though it is not so big yet but i am sure once it's active users crosses from 70k i think steemit will become viral sort of thing and the upcoming SMT's surely benefit both the advertisers and users, the most noticable thing is that every SMT will be created on top of steem blockchain and it will be traded in steem/smt pair and surely benefits the steem price as well, thanks for sharing your thoughts with us, Stay awesome.

There is no guarantee that SMT's will take off passed the steem community. From what I hear, there are plans by big media outlets to adopt an SMT, but what happens when these well known sites decide that all the bots, vote buying and trolling over who got paid what causes them to abandon the reward token?

There are solutions proposed that could prevent these, but they haven't even been experimented with yet. So I'm very skeptical that we're ready for SMT's. In my opinion steem is not yet a good example of a sustainable decentralised social network, which means any SMT could be just as unsustainable.

Aside from that, steem still gains value from all of these 3rd party applications. Personally I think they bring more value than any SMT will. They have the ability to hit specific internet markets, which means steem is no longer "not for everyone". But development costs blood, sweat, tears, time & money. Promotion & marketing basically has to come from investors and users, and as long as people are unsatisfied, they're on strike from promoting the network and those platforms.

Besides, everybody keeps making the assumption that investors are some multi millionaire or advertiser. Some day they might be, but that is probably 5 years down the road like most other social networks. Our investors are US. We're the ones buying steem when we're satisfied that this is sustainable and going to grow. There are far more of us than there is millionaire's with nothing better to do with their money. While we lose users, we lose potential investors. Not indirectly because they attract investors, but directly because all our investors started out as users.


I also disagree with the widely shared view that investment in steem comes from people wanting to gain exposure on the platform (especially while people can buy upvotes). I do accept that some people have invested for that reason, but I see it as the wrong reason.

Steem is an active investment as opposed to a passive one. When you power up you can use your SP to help empower and grow the network through user retention. You can't do that by spending all or most of your votes on yourself.

Remember that those who invested in all the little bull markets were people that were here long enough getting satisfactory rewards.

While I agree with you in theory regarding the end-users purchasing steem and powering up, I haven't seen it turn into reality. In fact, many seem to want to take rewards out of the system instead of put them in or even hold them. Isn't paying users to use the platform about the same thing as buying "votes"? Just on a grandor scale?
Anything earned easily isn't valuable and will not go up in price.

While I agree that voting bots can compromise the desire to buy steem power, I think they DO help us to retain investors. The active bloggers (generalizing) do not seem to have the funds or interest in purchasing Steem. Self-voting, of course not entirely seems to be a good reason to purchase steem.

I feel the idea of holding SteemPower and why has definately gotten confusing. :)

I don't think there are right or wrong reasons to invest. Different goals.

I agree that SteemIt, Inc needs to depend on the current users to hold while they launch and build their vision.

I always appreciate your point of view and willingness to talk about it.

Thank you, I appreciate yours too. But if you say anything earned easily isn't valuable then doesn't the voting bots make it easy? It used to be about the work (big or small) put in by the people who engage and interact, this keeping others engaged. That actually did make it hard but also valuable. That was when ordinary users were buying and powering up.

I also don't see people buying steem in order to buy upvotes. Generally they're using the SbD they made from the last upvote and sending it back to the whale that upvoted them (or a bot-running minnow who pays the whale). This means it's all going to the whale and it doesn't matter as much what price they sell their steem at since they always have more coming in. This is something @dan had envisioned would be prevented by other whales, but we rejected the tools that would have been used to do that.

Interesting thoughts. It is true you can continue to build the account without additional purposes. I do not have a clear vision of how we move forward from here.

With SteemIt, Inc. working towards a different model - with many applications and front-ends, It seems that trying to tinker with "SteemIt" feels like yesterday's concern.

*"It used to be about the work (big or small) put in by the people who engage and interact, this keeping others engaged. That actually did make it hard but also valuable. That was when ordinary users were buying and powering up."

Good point.

Loading...

even though there are so many Steemit accounts only around 30000 uses are active (daily)at the moment, for advertisers attention Steemit should gain more and more active users. But at the moment it is not heading towards it rather Steemit focus now shifted to SMT.
Let's hope it will work out well.
Cheers!

You don't know the roadmap then... We are waiting for a HardFork that make user-registration free. That way there is no liabilities when we start advertising.

1 million users on this fork will cost someone a lot of money as they subsidise the account creation fee.

Have some patience and stay informed on http://SteemSpeak.com and read @steemitblog

you create very nice article and photo is greet
👌👌👌👌👏👏👏👏👌👍👍👍👍👍

Coin Marketplace

STEEM 0.36
TRX 0.12
JST 0.039
BTC 69965.85
ETH 3540.49
USDT 1.00
SBD 4.71