There is no doubt that Steemit is going places. People forget that Facebook took seven years for it to become profitable. I mean how many are n Facebook compared to Steemit? Steemit is only just beginning. People are only just beginning to understand the power os blockchain technology.
Of course one of the biggest worries people have (at least from my experience talking with friends who do not know of blockchain tech) is Government interfering and regulations. I can understand this with regards to Bitcoin as indeed it is threat to the fiat economy.
However, when you look at steem- an internal token to reward content . - then I think it must be somewhat difficult for governments to see such innovations as any kind of threat. The token is "used" for something specific and thus is no threat to authority. This could change in the future of course as crypto-currencies take more of a hold over the actual economy.

I joined in December of 2016 so it is coming up to a year for me soon and I agree it is remarkable just how far Steemit has evolved in such a short time. I year in the crypto space is 10 years in the real world lol

Always interesting to listen to you my good fellow