For the most part, the site functions decently if you're already particularly well established on here. Those of us that were fortunate enough to have joined Steemit before the massive rise in crypto prices would have found it considerably less difficult to get up off our feet and inject ourselves into a community on here, writing about whatever we feel like, but actually getting seen.
Unfortunately, that's increasingly difficult for newer people here on Steemit. The UI prioritises fresh content and popular content; but how can one expect to have their posts seen if their posts are drowned out in a sea of other posts almost immediately? At best, the solution is to find an incredible small niche in which its tags see less flow of fresh content, but then there's the case of content suffering as a result of simply not enough audience seeing and having the voting power to reward the content.
While the concept of communities (Hivemind) is on the horizon, I can't see it having as much of a difference when it comes to good content simply being drowned out, unrewarded, and ignored, leading to the newly-joined users here on Steemit becoming increasingly discouraged, despite producing just as strong content -- and if not better -- than those wracking up hundreds within seconds of posting. There are community-ran attempts to somewhat combat this, but it's certainly a problem that needs to be addressed, rather than left for the community to attempt to deal with out of their own small earnings.
That said, I certainly don't claim to have the answers here. While the problem of good content immediately getting ignored and thrown into a sea of other posts is forever blatant, all I can think of is an update to the UI that focuses more on posts with higher view counts in tags, rather than the amount of upvotes/earnings they've produced. For now, the Trending and Hot posts prioritise mostly the same few people as a result of the sheer amount of upvotes and earnings they receive, and I believe adding the option for users to filter those out and view posts based more on their recent view counts instead could help combat the fact that good content is often unrewarded.
Another, more effective, solution would be to allow users to vote, not based on their Steem Power voting weight or a payment, but with a simple voting option with a category that replaces the Promoted section (come on, the Promoted section is useless anyway) and based on those upvotes, the posts would be placed essentially in an 'undervalued hall of fame' for a period of time. Users can receive, for example, ten votes per day and such votes cannot stack.
Obviously, these are just two small ideas of one person, but together, I think we should make our voices heard and start prioritising smaller users that produce as much value to the platform as others earning much more.
