From my perspective, most of the hate on steem / steemit / related apps is less about finding alternatives. The main complaint I've encountered is that the bots have become over-powered that effectively robs resources from people trying to build up their presence AND from the platform itself that could be used to the same effect by using steem to self-promote content. That alone could create a viable market, the more people are actively USING cryptos the less the overall market will be susceptible to things like pump and dumps.

I agree with you that there's some legit human activity going on, which is probably the main reason the platform did not completely collapse when the price of cryptos dropped some months ago.

Haven't really looked at the metrics in some time, but when a platform starts hitting the millions of users, can't really call it 'infancy' anymore... the time to address issues to lower the barrier of entry to noobs is sooner rather than later.

Frankly, if a method were made to eliminate bots from the platform, suddenly the growth would return to organic, where people with interesting positions and ideas will float to the top without being overshadowed by those whose interactions are mainly bought and paid.