Great article here. I like your last option for how to automate new user accounts. Let new users generate some content and add to the overall value of the community before being able to cash out. (Followed)

I'm really new here and my account took almost a week to get approved.

This issue must be solved in another way than manual later on i guess,
Since i think STEEMIT will explode this fall.

I had to wait 2  days also.. we thought it was fake first.. but luckily it isn't

From an economics standpoint, the way account acquisition has been designed in Steemit, is wrong.

While other companies may pay for advertisement and split these expenses among all users who have joined their platform and call it account acquisition, Steemit is just giving away money, AFTER the user has joined the platform. No one joins Steemit for the initial couple of dollars, they join it, hoping to become millionaires - handing out a couple of dollars is absolutely unnecessary, but it also does not hurt an economy, which never stops printing money. So there's nothing to be worried about.

Talking about everyone wanting to become millionaires brings another point - most users abandon the platform quick enough, leaving thousands of abandoned accounts with locked Steem in them. And you know the market logic dictates - the less there is of a product, the higher its price.

So the solution is simple - allow all new accounts to automatically join, but don't offer them any free Steem. In several months, most of the discouraged wannabe millionaires will leave the platform and lock a huge amount of Steem, which they've earned in the process, thus keeping the price of Steem up (in fact abandoned accounts should be deleted after a certain period of time and all locked Steem in them).

Which, on a side note, Steem will desperately need, as its price will soon plummet, unless there's a new ransomware on its way.

Waiting make you appreciate it more when you eventually have it.  Gratitude is a good thing.   It also makes it more desired.  By making it a bit exclusive it increased the value and demand for it.   It raised the worth of being a part.   NICE for the rest of us that are now in.  Thanks.

Could Steemit end up being a platform just for the elite? 

Would it survive?

Great options!

If I were a new user, I'd like the escrow account. It would give me some incentive to participate in different ways. It would be like unlocking different capabilities.

Maybe having it be tough to get into Steem isn't such a bad thing in the short term - I remember when Gmail was invite only (2gb storage per user for free? Unscalable!!) and invites were sold on eBay for hundreds of dollars

Thats really good news... Growth of Steemit will be very organic... Thanks for sharing the updates @dragosroua

Good ideas for the onboarding process. But how about having new users write their first post as part of the sign up process? These posts could be collected by a bot and posted to a single "new-user-candidates" account, or something like that. If their posts are upvoted enough by the community, which would also weed out plagiarism and reposting, the account is created. Just an idea.

Is there a way atm for secondary accounts to setup fast? Without "welcome" steem?

I was thinking about splitting my German posts from the rest.

I really like all of your proposed options. Any or all could work. None of them would hinder the new user completely and make it unusable but would still create that hype. People are impatient but they also want what is hard to get.

>  Please, pretty please, with sugar on top, if you read this and you're just the regular internet freeloader drooling at the prospect of having free blockchain money, don't take it personally. I think you're a good person, but this is not your place. Really. Peace.

That's well said, @dragosroua

![bill.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmShdC5BXCnP1QuRsfoxxDB6hijkjtMjSi5sAzMHt5KKq4/bill.jpg)

404 https://steemit.com/steemit/@dragosroua/(https://steemit.com/steemit/@dragosroua/steemit-newbie-faq-witnesses-what-are-they-and-why-should-you-care)

- 5,511 new accounts were created yesterday.
- Each account receives 0.5 Steem + 27.5 Steem is being delegated to the account.
- 5,511 * 28 Steem = 154,308 Steem.
- 154,308 Steem costs about $365,710

$365,710 per day! Is this sustainable?

I was just mailing with a friend of mine, who created his account, but is still waiting for it to be finalized. I guess this does help us gain actual interested users. I won't pretend to understand all of the consequences of what you just wrote here, but I do hope a good and workable solution will be found for an influx of new users. We *do* want to get many new ones in eventually, right?

It's a good thing because it shows that there is big demand for Steem.

But how it's handled is kind of retarded.

Many startups have to pay for their users to get them join. But Steemit won't let new users in even if they want to pay! Everybody has to get into the waiting line because Steemit keeps insisting that it's the only way to get the account.

So Steemit makes everybody to wait, and it's expensive for Steemit because they need to pay for every account creation fee instead of users paying it themselves.

This can't go on forever and my strong opinion is that Steemit should start to sell accounts as soon as possible. It will make the waiting list shorter for those who don't want to pay and it won't take as much resources from Steemit Inc as it's taking now.

It hurts viral growth if the user acquisition is hindered by a bad signup process. I bet there are a lot of new users who lost their initial excitement when they have to wait for a week. If they had their account immediately, they could jump right in and tell all of their friends what they just found. But when they have waited for a week, the excitement has been decreased and when they finally get their account, they'll be like *"oh, well, I have other things to do, I'll check that out later"* and forget it.

It's just really bad business to turn away potential customers when we are still in the initial growth phase.

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One way of avoiding the waiting list is to use a service such as [AnonSteem](https://anon.steem.network).

If you don't already have BTC or LTC, @thankyoujay wrote a nice little guide from buying the coins, to getting an account: https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@thankyoujay/how-i-got-a-new-steem-account-in-minutes-and-how-you-can-too-introducing-thankyoujay

I do wonder how Steemit will scale up to millions of users. It's just not practical to validate thousands each day and there is bound to be a backlog. The Steemit account has 70 million SP, so they can fund a lot of accounts, but eventually they could run out. Early on they exploited Github and Facebook (I think) to validate users. Is it possible to do that again? I know not everyone has an account with those, but there are still alternative ways to get an account by paying. I'd be willing to sponsor accounts for friends who want to join.

Ned has said he's up for the challenges of scaling up. Let's see what happens!

Waiting lists make things more exclusive, which can be a good thing. Can't the user fee be charged on the user itself? This will incentivise quality posts and participation and some level of commitment I think, at least until the user breaks even. Or the new accounts could start with a negative balance, where the user doesn't actually start earning until the fee has been covered? I know it is a barrier for sign up, but I'm just wondering...

thanks for sharing this - i am glad i found you.. followed! i am a software engineer/architect and also run a small social network that i will be starting to make more public soon. i am interested in learning how to integrate steem into my network and maybe also making a general system for integrating steem into any website that has posting functions - so far though i haven't found much useful help from technical people. i made some posts sabout the issue here if you or anyone wants to chip in: https://steemit.com/steemit/@ura-soul/increase-the-value-of-steem-exponentially-an-app-to-add-steemit-features-to-wordpress-and-other-social-platforms

and

https://steemit.com/steemit/@ura-soul/steemit-ochondria-allowing-easy-duplication-of-the-steemit-website-code-to-create-many-sites-plus-lessons-from-minds-com-and