RE: Quick Update Regarding User Retention
There was significant posting spam too, which has declined for various reasons (and Dan addressed this specifically in his post!). I've pointed out before that I believe the most abuse-resistant metrics we have are edits and deletes, because there is little incentive for spammers to ever do those things, and little reason for actual user behavior regarding those to change systematically. If you look at those metrics you see limited growth but no real decline (ignoring one-time bump in July after the mega-payout).
In fact those metrics probably understate growth by a small degree because of a change that was made that disallowed edits after the first (usually 24 hours) payout. Previously that was allowed. So this would tend to reduce the number of edits over time relative to usage.
Downvoted to remove/reduce platform updates from reward pool payouts. Please implement an alternative method of visibility for these.
I also think there was a surge of users who came on expecting instant riches in the wake of the massive price rise of STEEM these people had unrealistic expectations and I think they may well have left. They should not be counted as serious users either.
The whole point is trying to get quality content and I would have to agree that although posts seem to be decreasing the spam content has reduced and the poorly thought out posts also seem to be less.
We shouldn't get complacent but I don't think there is a reason to panic either.
Well said.
I think that also a lot of users left or stopped posting, becasue they were not actually appreciated for their quality content. Thet spend all day writing a great article to get 100 votes and $0.1, while some superpowerful user posts photos of his cat and gets $1000 from whales just for being a whale.
Agreed. The overall quality - IMHO - is up. I have even stopped making blog posts until I have what I feel to be something really good.
Edits were 2,300 art 8/2 and 2,294 yesterday. Actually it is a slight decline. However, in terms of edits per account, it is neaely halved. If we assume 90% of newly created accounts are fake ones, it still decreased by 10%.
We don't know the number of fake accounts but it may very well be >90%. Please reread Dan's post and consider all the different reasons that accounts may be created that don't correspond to an actual person (including something he didn't mention -- actual people who do sign up but do so multiple times).
Furthermore some portion of users dropping off is normal and expected, especially in the time immediately after signup. It isn't ever going to be for everyone; some will try it and not find that it is their thing. It is impossible to ever achieve success with every single user.
The problem is not enough real users signing up. If we use your number of 90% fake, that gives us about 150-200 "real" users per day signing up. That is nowhere near enough to get us anywhere at all. And by "problem" here, I mean just low growth right now. If in the future enhancements to the platform and greater exposure increases that 150-200 (or whatever the number), then it won't be a problem that the growth rate was low early.
What I'm witnessing through my friends and family who are reading my blog and my parents blog and trying to sign up, is that the very first steps to registration are not user friendly.
A few weeks ago I wrote about this problem and proposed a solution to this but there another issue not mentioned in that post which is the Facebook sign up. While most people I know couldn't get passed the password to register, some simply don't like logging in through Facebook.
All the optimistic interpretations require a decrease of real users, which is not desirable.
@clayop
I completely agree. I do not find the current level of growth encouraging, though apparently Dan has some data that paints a different picture. I asked him for more detail, and it will be interesting to see what that is if he provides it.
My only disagreement (or perhaps questioning is a better word) with your interpretation is whether the issue is less growth in real users (bad) or a decline in user participation (also bad). In reality it is probably some of both, but I do feel you have been painting too harsh a picture on the latter, especially when you presented the chart from Dan's post without accounting to any meaningful degree for the issues both he and I have identified with it (fake accounts, antispam system changes, etc.)