My main issue lies in the fact that the vast majority of users sign-up to become content creators. Sure this is beneficial in the beginning as it provides the platform with content that draws people to the site.

I mean Steemit is not doing poorly by any means, near 1 million users is no small feat.



But in the current state of steemit everyone is trying to make money with their account. A significant reason for this is if a potential content viewer (who only wants to follow an interesting blogger) trys to sign up they have to verify (this loses many people) and then wait an extended period of time (most others will lose interest). This leaves only people who want to make money off their own content sticking around to complete account creation.

With everyone trying to make money with their account, the majority of steem power is used for personal gain rather than to support/promote the content they enjoy.

This has obviously allowed the bot economy to take over, with the majority of "top" content creators only trending because they spent the most on promotion, rather than having a good following. (yes, this is not everyone who is trending, but you have to agree there is a lot).



I don't have a solution to the growing pay to win system evolving on steem, what i'm suggesting is that we promote steem and make it more accessible to more content viewers rather than creators, which could perhaps help level the playing field between those who pay for upvotes and those with good content and a good following who earn upvotes. (There is nothing innately wrong with paying for votes, it is essentially just a way to invest, my fear is though, is that it will inhibit steemit from becoming main steam in the long term).





Possible Solution



- Make signing up bi-phasic -

Users could create an account that can; vote, comment, resteem, follow and get followed using a shorter (and hopefully less costly) account creation method i.e. no mobile verification and therefore quicker sign-up. Somewhat similar to making any social media account. The second phase would be for users who wanted to post their own content, send steem, receive steem, or earn steem, this would require normal verification.

What about bots? I understand that it costs money for steemit to create accounts hence the current verification process, but there would be limited reason for people to make throwaway or botting accounts as they would have to fund them with their own steem (to vote, etc.) until they were verified anyway.

This would allow a huge influx of content viewers who just want to use steemit, dtube, etc. to view their favourite content and aren't interested in making their own. They would be able fund their own accounts with steem (just not send or receive from other users) which would allow them to support their favourite creators with more powerful curation.

I am not suggesting this has to be the absolute solution, simply i'm suggesting a possible direction of creating accounts with limitations for viewing, and more verification if someone wants to create a 'full' account to post. Of course the stipulations and limitations are open to suggestion, mine are just an example.

Tl:dr - Allow easier registration for users who just want to view content, and verification for users who want to post and earn steem.

Thank-you for reading, please comment your thoughts and critiques below :)