"But the people who joined steemit.com early on were doing so in spite of the difficulty because we were giving them the opportunity to take ownership over their content. "

Uhm. No?
People signed up early because they had an amazing chance to earn a shit ton of money for posting the same stuff they posted elsewhere.

The majority of the people on STEEM are here for the money. When we fail to reward new users they leave. Simple as that.

It has never been about being a part of a decentralised, non-censorship platform for the majority of the people. Bob wants money. We need to give him that or he will leave. The lack of rewards are the main reason for people to leave. It has always been about the rewards.

People can talk about community and whatever, that's not the main reason for people to join. It might be why some people decides to stay, but it's definitely not the main reason for people to join.

"Steem and steemit.com grew rapidly because we offered people an experience that they couldn’t get anywhere else."

Yeah. You offered people money. When people realized they won't earn, they decided to leave. That's also the reason for people to not sign up today. They don't earn and the value of STEEM is low.

On top of that, STEEM is difficult for people to understand and we allowed people to promote STEEM like a personal ATM. Like a cash cow. They did that for years and everyone was okay with that...

bidbots destroyed the trending pages, vote selling in general destroyed manual curation. The users who scored a lot in the early days are the same people who earns today. (with the exception of some investor here and there perhaps).

Greed, poor leadership, ignorant behaviour and lack of self-control ruined STEEM. And that's the reason for STEEM to be stagnant no matter what happens. Give people a fair chance of earning rewards, like they had in the early days, and the masses will come without any major marketing.