This place needs some HYPE

...said @aggroed in yesterday's Steem Witness Monthly Forum, to which I listened in its recorded form (quote from memory). He referred to Steem and the current lack of activity, like everyone is expecting something to boost their morale.

^Source

Steemfest is something to look forward to, and I'm sure activity will pick up during and after it.

But we're still looking at a few months from the second half of November to the end of March, when SMTs will be launched, if everything will go on according to schedule.

During which there are the winter holidays, when people have more time and would love to have something new and exciting to try out and talk on Steem and to friends they might want to bring over, if price won't give us a pleasant surprise.

I believe some people are trying to bring changes to the reward system, which would mean to the blockchain core, partially to improve engagement, theoretically.

There are long talks about what is a better reward system, and I've tried to express my position in yesterday's post. If the new reward system were to fail to bring better results, a new discussion will begin, and a new change to the blockchain core, if it comes to that.

I also agree with some of the opinions expressed on the Steem Witness Forum by @yabapmatt and @upheaver, I think, that this improvement in curation would be better achieved through user interface considerable improvements, and not by changes to the core of the blockchain every time we want to attempt to break a certain pattern. A new pattern will always be found to replace the current one and keep the status quo.

In the end, Hivemind/Communities and SMTs should be able to regulate these elements at the micro-level, while the macro-level reward pool will become of a less and less importance, the more users join in. All this effort to change the reward system seems like a wasted time for everyone.

When I look at my feed and compare it with what it used to be in terms of activity yep, I agree we need some HYPE to get some people back.

And yes, many user interfaces are "mediocre" at best right now, and improvement in this area would really help with user retention, but that only works if people offering these DApps have a working business model (and conduct), and in most cases that's not true.

I think I'd grab a doze of morale booster myself, lol! Where's that HYPE?

Phew, only a few days to SteemFest. Will that be it?