NXT sux at there marketing aspect but if they really pull off what they say they are going to in the Ardor platform. I see them as overtaking Etherum. As far as Steemit goes I  agree they are just on the ground floor of a huge build to the moon!

The DAO hack and then the fork has really hurt Ethereum.

It's definitely way more "problem" focus. As a marketer I saw steemit approach as the best:
1. Choose a niche that create "network effect"
2. Create a solution to the problem of that niche
3. Create a payment network with 0 fees
4. Incentivize people to hold

Doesn't take a genius to see the huge potential. My whole family is on steemit now. They would have NEVER got into bitcoin...EVER. Its already a huge success in my eyes.

Now what we need is a steemit debit card and we are golden.

"Steemit is precisely the kind of decentralized service that Ethereum is supposed to enable." - This statement is simply not true. Steem it is far less decentralized, nor are they trying to provided the same service as Ethereum in any way. You sir have totally misunderstood the Ethereum project and where it is heading. The next 6-12 months will open your eyes.

I may be wrong but if I get it right the advantage of building a dapp on the top of ethereum is that you don't need to bring people on board to mine your coin. If you're a start up that nobody knows, it is going to be really hard to convince miners to work with your coin.

I was just thinking about this actually... Ethereum keeps talking about how they are waiting for the "killer app". Steemit kind of seems like the app that they were waiting for BUT it's not built on Ethereum. I still think Ethereum is going to do incredibly well, however the potential behind Steemit is almost unfathomable! 
Thanks for the article

Thanks for this article! -upvoted Here you can read an article about the new two blockchains of Ethereum: https://steemit.com/ethereum/@future24/after-the-hardfork-ethereum-s-two-ethereums-explained Im happy about your visit & upvote too!

That's cool if we don't have to be dependent on Ethereum because  Steemit  is way better platform and I love to be part of it for future too.

Bitshares + Steemit together!

Hi! This post has a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch%E2%80%93Kincaid_readability_tests">Flesch-Kincaid</a> grade level of 12.0 and reading ease of 53%. This puts the writing level on par with Michael Crichton and Mitt Romney.

The Steemit approach is more investment worthy . Indeed, a social network with reward  service s  a key for users and  content ecosystems  can be built upon steemit 
thats a nice start for a Betta steemit stage .. keep the Good work ...

p.s. if you like  read my post ,  ..lol
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Sorry but can't agree with the article. You mentioned some good points worth discussing, but  the main idea "we may not need ethereum because we have steem" is somewhat off. Especially since you are comparing two very different projects with different goals.

First of all, I must admit that I have participated in DAO experiment, and sold my tokens (with a big discount unfortunately) before hard fork was voted on. I even participated in an eth pool mining so you can't consider me as a "dispassionate bystander". But I have been watching  crypto sphere for quite some time and I was investing in a few coins before ethereum was even born. Now I participate on steem project and if something better rise up, I won't hesitate a second to join in.

But back to the article - we can say that DAO was some sort of a flagship of ethereum for some time and a huge success until the hack. You don't see 155M projects raising very often , even less so in crypto sphere.  DAO itself  held almost the same capitalisation as steem holds now. It was supposed to be an ultimate investing vehicle but due to flaws in the code it ended as a disaster. I don't blame eth developenet team to support hard fork, in the end it was the community that decided the next course of action, and this community must now bear the consequences (ETC split and lost some portion of supporters). But consider this - DAO accident would break almost any altcoin in the cryptosphere, yet ethereum is still here and there are still plenty of projects being developed on this platform. I see no reason why to regard ethereum as a failed platform. Do you think DAO was the only project active on it? What about DixigDAO, or Maker? They are too "DAO"s you know, and I haven't heared that they are negatively impacted by the incident. The original Ethereum proposition "To allow developers and entrepreneurs to create decentralized and autonomous services based on the Ethereum blockchain." is still here. In contrary to your belief I think that ethereum now is even more valued by potential developers due to two facts:
- all their creation can run on two platforms now (eth and etc)
- community is acting quickly (compared to bitcoin its a  speed of light), can make a decision (even if some minority is not happy about the outcome) and are acting in a demogratic way. the pure decentralised way (note how a vote was processed)

Steem on the other hand is still young, has limited itself to a socialization site and any possible bugs are still to be found. You are right in one thing though - that "if the steemit devs had tried to build their project on ethereum, they would have been limited by infrastructure problems that they would not be able to respond directly". Any project of such proportions would better off on their own I guess.

Nice informational article jako! Thanks-

it is too boldly.. i think.