An excellent take on some of the reasons on what causes low users retention on Steemit (and what actually increase it).

I think what will make the biggest difference is when Steemit will be used by enough people as a full substitute for Facebook, Reddit and the like.

That will kick in the network effect, and the monetary incentive will become less important, because people spend a large chunk of their time on those platforms anyway, so even miniscule payments will be better than the SQUAT + privacy violations that the current tech behemoths are treating them.