Competition is good and would be the best outcome. Unless hive fixes the things that chiller mentions and also sps gets a complete revamp I can see how there really is no point in doing anything more than hobby stuff to contribute. I also think it really depends what will happen in the first month after launch, how justin will try to dump hive that he gets now, then maybe he will step up and develop steem which is good for the loyalists but he could just call it a day and in the meantime we will watch the old powers take hold of hive and either the glimmer of hope that things can be better will fade or it will remain and we will look north and fuck forward.

Also no need to be a designer with a nice frontend framework that makes sense to you it is simple enough to prototype in the browser and just have things look good by using default classes already provided.