I've seen the problem grow bigger in just few months. I posted a few times around 5 months ago, then had a pause and started a week ago again.

It's crazy how different amount of new posts are coming all the time. It's very hard to find anything interesting and I feel there is a big difference in post quality. However, who would want go write quality posts when they can be missed by everybody.

Sad.

I agree with you. UX is not where it could be. I would also add that the search function has to be improved.

As a new user I am finding it difficult to figure out what people want to read and when to post it. Followers are important to me but mostly I crave comments and feedback which are lacking because everyone is too busy posting or wading through the home feed - which I am desperately starting to hate. 

We really do need a customized feed! I follow people that post daily and I can never find their posts on time. And it really seems like as a follower I am never really in the loop. It seems really odd that we aren't notified when there are new posts from the people we follow. The replies button decides to stop working every now and again and I want to toggle email notifications for each follower.

Groups! We can't truly be a community if we can't gather into groups and chat about whatever topics we find interesting. I want to be able to find like minded people and talk to them outside of the comments. All the forums that I have seen are offsite which is a ton of wasted potential.

I agree and disagree, if you go to hot or trending there are entertaining articals but there are alot of Japanese post that ahould be spererated to a new tab, but there are alot of follow for follow as you said, if new users would just make intertaning blogs they would get plenty of follows. All it takes is one good post to gain everyones attention, thanks for sharing you opinion.

It's all in the works. Have faith in the Steemit team as they continue to hire more developers and address these concerns. 
Patience please, it's a work in progress. 🐝

I agree with every single thing you said! With overcrowded feed you have scroll for a long time to find something to grab your attention. I love photography but when I want to find anything related to it , it is mission impossible! Finding anything specific is road with no return. Those problems should be addressed.

Agree in some points, there have to be some thing fixed...

Great post and all four of your ideas need to be implemented.  I can't imagine how chaotic Steemit will be with a couple million users.  Would be nice to be able to direct message a user as well.

thank you for posting

I have been saying since I started here (ahem 8 or 9 days ago) that I'd really like to sort through the resteems to find the people I follow's original content! I hate sorting through the resteems!

Yep , it is harder now than before ...

I agree wholeheartedly!  I am part of a couple of loose communities like homesteading and gardening and it's tough to locate content.  I think resteems should be separated from your personal content on the Blog page, too.  And I would love to get a notification if I am mentioned somewhere, currently that's not happening from what I see.

https://media.giphy.com/media/XdtNBj101YLGE/giphy.gif

I can't agree with this enough. These are all great minimal suggestions that will help a lot! Upvoted and Resteemed!

Steemit already has subcategories which act as a filter; for example, "homesteading"..  

Adding more specific subjects might help, but in the end there's going to be a flood of screed on Steemit ... It just goes with the territory ....

So I disagree with you because growth trumps your complaint ...  And your complaint can be fixed without sacrificing massive growth...

Finally, in this globalised world if your brand isn't growing it's dying. Think about that. I understand quality content is important, but most people aren't writers and they never will be so get used to it....

Totally agree, lets just focus on quality at the moment and then we will be ready to handle quantity. good points :)

I absolutely agree. UX has always been neglected here. 

We need to remember that from the user perspective we are not really competing in the crypto domain (where UX has always been non-existent) but in the social network domain (where UX is the major factor).

There are so many crucial features available on the blockchain yet not supported in the GUI. These include:
- vote delegation
- setting up a new account for a friend
- language segregation

Yet in HF20 we aim for... mobile support and more users. Absolutely crazy.

thank you for sharing

Doesn't Twitter (and many other social media platforms) have the same "problem" you're describing here? If a new twitter account tweets out to 0 followers, they shouldn't be confused as to why no one saw or interacted with their tweet. I'm not convinced there's really a problem here. This is just how social media works. Gaining followers takes time and effort. Writing an amazing blog post on some random blog doesn't mean people will find it. Building a following matters and that isn't effectively done with "follow me too!" comments. It takes time, engagement, and real effort.

I've been <a href="https://steemit.com/blogging/@lukestokes/last-week-i-made-usd1-500-worth-of-cryptocurrency-blogging-on-steemit-here-s-how">blogging for 13+ years</a> while being mostly ignored. That experience has helped me write things here people enjoy which is leading to a growing following. I don't think there's a shortcut for that process.

I do think some small UI tweaks could be made which might help a little, but ultimately this platform deals with the same chicken and egg problem of every other social platform.

Q) "How do you get a lot of followers?"

A) "Consistently write a lot of great content over a long period of time."

Q) "Who decides if the content is 'great' and how do you ensure people actually see it?"

A) "'Great' is determined by a lot of readers who find your content, usually by following you."

Q) "So... how do you get them to follow you?"

A) "..."

I see that Steemit is still in beta, so solving a lot of these problems first before mass signup will help with retention.  If a newbies signs up and find that it is not as convenienent then we have probably lost them forever.  Not to mention possible post about bad experience on Steemit.com thereby discouraging others to join.

Will the mining of steem with miners reduce the overall rewards? If not, is the inflation rate going up in the process?

Hi @samupaha thanks for this most useful article. I didn't know anything about Hardfork 20. I've only been on steemit a week but I have already identified most of the issues you mention with scaling - particularly around the 'noise' issue.
How do you find useful content. Definitely need to deal with language filtering. Communities would be most useful, and feed customisation. There is some great content on steemit but it is hellishly hard to find it! 
Thanks for the headsup on the new proposed HF20 developments.

i totally agree and had many post related to this, but at a reputation of 40 no one saw it or seem to care.scaling and ui are big issues for steem.I also felt occasional network outage.Not sure which end has the problem

When all the promotion regarding Steemit only revolves around the money, it attracts people only looking to make a quick buck. While some can, very few of those people add any significant value to the community, and will rather just spam away.

This is why the money should not be the only focus. It has been, and we're seeing the results.

I am new here myself but I did notice an uptick even from just before HF19. Also it is pretty difficult to sift through all the new posts. I have had to even curate my followers feed to reduce "spam". Hope it just adjusts over time because this platform is very new and going to go through a lot more changes.

I agree! your proposals would make it a lot more manageable. I hope this post reaches the people with power to change the Steemit.com site. Resteemed!

i totally agree with you

I agree that the interface is a bottleneck and is in need of improvement/redesign of some kind.  for all the hate on Facebook at least the interface is easy to use and fairly intuitive, clearly they spent a lot of the on research and development.  wasn't somebody working on fb-like one?

Spot on. I think many good ideas can be borrowed from reddit including customized homepages for topics.

Totally agree. 

I would also like to see a native search with some nice filters — by time elapsed and tag for example.

There is also a mentality problem, too often a new user doesn't know how to behave in an online community and follows low ethics practiced by other users around who were attracted by money and don't care about long term consequences of low quality posts and comments on the community.

Yep, another thing i noticed is that new users will need information about the site when they join, so they know how to act. Many helpful steemians write posts to guide new users but if that post is more than 3-4hours old, you will never, ever be able to find it.