lol I imagine a precise calculation would take some time, I don't expect you to do that just for this thread.

It's really hard to reach that critical mass where things start growing on their own, content creators know that better than anyone. It doesn't help that a huge chunk of the community was scared away from the Proof of Brain model right after it began to take off with steemit. I've been keeping a close eye on penguinpablo's posts, specifically active users (with bots and all that in mind) and I'm also very disappointed.

I hate to say it (because I love the energy), but I feel that a lot of the effort at twitter has been completely wasted, if not counterproductive. People have put a ton of effort into that with little bother to understand the Twitter algorithms. I suspect that the only time it's been useful is when we target specific people and reply to other tweets. The #hive tag may not have done much but put Hive users in a bubble at twitter where no one else sees our tweets.

I do think the momentum will start to build now that people are talking about social blockchains and that the best second layer apps have a positive feedback loop with the larger Hive community. I really want to prove you wrong with regards to this just being a matter of time and circumstance and perhaps 3speak and another project or two may help me make that point in coming months.

Your position is totally reasonable though and I appreciate you answering all my questions, just voted for your witness. I hope we have people running the chain who are willing to engage like this when they have time and who at least TRY to appreciate the little guy's angle. I also hope we can look for more ways to align the interests of investors and content creators, and that I can personally find more ways as a content creator that ease the mind of any decent large investors.