RE: Down Down We Go – And why that might not be a bad thing
I disagree about your take on the leadership. The leadership (i.e. @ned, @dantheman, the whales, and the developers) are actually very engaged with the community and doing a lot to improve the site. It is still in the very early (beta) stages. This can be seen in the various posts and community discussions that they are participating in. I recently did a series of posts here about a lot of the enhancements that the community wants done with the site, and I got @ned to upvote one, and @dantheman to upvote another. Also, @theoretical (one of the lead developers) upvoted the post and spent a lot of time replying to and upvoting comments that people made. There are a lot of people working very hard to make this project succeed. There is a lot that needs to be done though, and significant changes take time. Discussions also take place in a lot of informal was (through posts/comments, Steemit chat, etc.) and a lot of things happen behind the scenes.
The part about it being a gamble has some truth to it though. Despite everyone's best efforts, the site/project could still crash and burn. There are a lot of things that could go wrong. The main point of the article though is that there are going to be people that see the potential in what the site could (and hopefully will) be someday, and these will be the people putting in significant time/investment in the early stages not knowing for sure whether it will pay off. These will be the people with significant stake in the site if it eventually becomes what it has the potential to become.
I didn't say they were not involved. I said, I wish they had a strong message of the path we are on. I said nothing bad about them at all.
What I said is we need strong leadership to carry this through Beta and further. What I mean by that is someone saying. Yes, the price is going down... Yes, we have user adoption issues, but here is what we are doing about it. A stong leadership message would be really helpful. (with a plan) Such as: We are going to add/change the following features and these are our first issues to address. With (however many devs we have) We think this might be done by this time, and that might be done by. I am not sure who's post you read. I never said, nor do I think they are uninvolved.
Right now they have the investment and they hold the Steem. That Steem will be slipping in numbers for them as much as for us. So, it is in everyone's best interest for us all to realize the potential.
Sorry, I misunderstood. I see your point now :)
Well, that does go back to my opening paragraph. I do not know their intent, nor have any proof that this is what they are doing - but at least historically they have been looking for people who found out through their own effort/understanding that the site has great potential - rather than having to be sold on / convinced that it was good. If they are following that trend, then it would be up to you to look at what you see here and determine if you think it has what it takes and is going in the right direction to ultimately be a successful project in the end.