I have seen lots of people posting about Hardfork 21, but I just have not had time to catch up with that. I understand that the Economic Improvement Proposal (EIP) would give more rewards for curation and less for posting. That is great for whales who can give huge votes, but most of us make much more from posting than curation. In my case it's at least five times as much, so I may stand to make less overall. A benefit of this is that 'bid bots' would be less attractive, so maybe it is worth it for that. It is up to the witnesses to decide if it goes through, so it is a good time to review your witness votes. I do hope you are using yours.
Meanwhile Steem is struggling to stay in the top 70 cryptocurrencies. It has been fairly stable around 40c for a while, but has dropped this week as Bitcoin is on the rise again. Some would say that @Steemit powering down over 300k Steem each week is not helping, but they have costs to cover. If we want developments like SMTs and communities then they have to pay some developers. They cannot keep that up indefinitely and I doubt the site is making that much from ads, so we really need to see Steem go up to make them viable.
I beieve the Steemit site is still the most used 'dapp' by far and so I will continue to monitor the stats for that. Hypestat shows various details including visitor numbers. Those were up a bit, but the Alexa rank has dropped again in the last few days. Alexa is showing more stats lately, but I think you have to sign up and possibly pay to get more. Steemit was in the top 1000 sites a while back, but is languishing outside the top 5000 now. It still lacks public awareness.
Despite this gloom I am still having fun on Steem with my running, music and other posts whilst interacting with various people. It is still a social site and we can enjoy that aspect. After all, people use other sites for no rewards at all. Here are a few people to check out for #FollowFriday:
@waphilip has a good post on whether we need to 'pay it forward' for Steem to have a future. This is close to my heart as I have been doing what I can through the 
@tenkminnows project to help small accounts. I have made a decent amount and will use my SP to give others a boost. A lot of us are not really desperate for the money.
@redrica is organising another London Meetup today. I won't make it as I have a music session, but get along if you can. She is also busy with her 
@weareunblocked crypto news/interview channel together with 
@ultravioletmag.
@streetstyle is doing a fundraiser to help a child in Venezuela (see 
@petrarodriguez). I know times are really tough there and a lot of people are using Steem to gain some extra income. They need it more than anyone after a 'Lambo'.
@arseniclullaby say he had seen #comics in the list on the front page of Steemit, but it was not there long. The list is generally full of things that would mean nothing to a non-Steemian. They will come here looking for their favourite topics and #comics could be one of those. We have some fine artists such as 
@katharsisdrill, 
@drwatson, 
@sidekickmatt, 
@northwestnomad, 
@paolobeneforti. 
@blewitt runs a comic store and has been bringing in people from that community. It really could be big if we target more artists and fans.Please add your own #FollowFriday suggestions in the comments or do your own post. We need to help good people get a bigger audience so they stick with Steem.
Steem on!
The geeky guitarist and facilitator of the 10K Minnows Project.
