People in general like sports, entertainment, sex and politics. I'm not sure any of those topics are welcome here.

It's funny how this ties into your other reply about funding coming with strings attached. I think it's not that these topics are unwelcome here, but rather that they're not actively supported by curators.

We think that the authors choose the topics, but really it's the high-value voters who drive a lot of it. The old adage about, "he who pays the piper calls the tune" comes to mind. I think web3 can connect funding and content creation more efficiently, but I think the funders will always want some measure of control.

or maybe Steemit should target a particular niche first (a "beachhead" as Bill Aulet says in Disciplined Entrepreneurship) and then expand.

I think they have done that with their steemit crypto academy, "the diary game", and their other community support programs. But growth happens slowly, especially in a down crypto market. What I would really hope to see is for other possible investors to see how Steemit is able to shape activity with their stake and realize how an investment here can be used to establish new "beachheads" in their own areas of interest... "Let a thousand flowers bloom," as they say. ;-)