Thanks for giving the community a fair hearing and writing for us on Wired.

In my opinion general public consensus on blockchains such as Steem is that they are confusing and unapproachable. This can be because any usage of the blockchain is compared to Bitcoin (understandably so) and Bitcoin has a history of usage in the illegal sense, making many people wary of the technology as a whole.

That is why it is so important for people like yourself to take a look at things like steemit in order to set the record straight. While some users of blockchain technology use it for illegal activities, many others simply use it for speculation/investing and new innovations in technology. As your investigation has found, Steemit is just a new form of social networking that gives everything back to the community rather than advertisers.

Even if you are done with your research, stick around :smile: . Steem is open to everyone!