I don't know. In my opinion to some it might and others it won't. This will be debatable depending on which way you look at it.
I personally think it's great that there are more platforms out there being created that can potentially provide people with an opportunity to create an income and become self sufficient as opposed to being stuck in the world of monopolized currencies. Sure, it could possibly have an impact on the Steem currency however there will likely only be a handful of these platforms that truly succeed and imo Steemit will definitely be one of them. Therefore I can't really see it having any major impact on the value of Steem in the long run.
Anyhow, back to the subject title. What will make Akasha (Etherium based) different? I don't know. I've played around a bit on the alpha and there are some obvious differences like cosmetics, voting and so on but what I would like to know is what will the Real differences be? I've added a few points below motivated by individuals such as 
I would like to be able to customize my personal feed, as in those individuals that I follow. Whether it gets sorted by my personal favorite content creators, trending, food or whatever. A more customizeable personal feed will really help me browse content easier. Steemit might well be looking at implementing such a system but as things stand now this isn't an option.
In other words, bots need to be controlled. At the moment Steemit is struggling with bot farming networks as an example and this reduces the joy of the experience. Bots are also problematic for new users who don't quite understand how the platform works yet and then get caught up in some sort of BS resteeming Service or something down those lines. I don't know if there is a better solution to this other than community involvement however I would prefer to see bots being approached differently. Whether it be through a reviewing system, differentiating somehow between bots and people or whatever that solution may be this needs some attention.
Not everyone is a content creator and not everyone should be on the platform to be a content creator. This simply creates an over saturated department. If people receive better rewards for quality comments this will "Spread the love" a little and people will become more engaging. There is another problem when it comes to voting on comments which I briefly touch on here in point 5.
Perhaps there should be some sort of a rewards system that will encourage those interacting with new users to engage them more. I don't have an exact idea about how something like that would work but perhaps it could work on some sort of a sliding scale of sorts. Let me give you an example;
A whale on Steemit has say 70 reputation. A newby has 25 reputation. If a whale interacts with a newby the whales rewards will be greater than when they interact with say a dolphin that has 60 reputation. This will create better engagement from those higher up the ladder to those lower down and help build them up a bit. As mentioned basing this on a sliding scale of sorts seems to be a possible way of going about something like that. This could also help curb these voting rings a bit and encourage better engagement from those individuals. A similar approach could possibly be applied to upvotes as well.
Spam is another big issue Steemit experiences. It's up to the community to reduce and/or eliminate spam however it's not an easy task. I see people being upvoted on what is clearly plagiarism and that is not beneficial AT ALL. This is particularly problematic when individuals with a higher reputation do this since those lower down see it and think "Well this is easy. Let me do that." Soon you find the platform loaded with rubbish that doesn't add any REAL value.
I don't believe I will leave the Steemit platform. I've had a great time to date!! I would however like to see some changes that will improve the experience for all that PUT THE EFFORT in. As for Akasha, well, I'm going hang around there to see what it will become. Heck, diversification is great!! Provided you can manage it correctly :):) I've seen people come here from Youtube and other platforms creating successful accounts all round. I would however mention that as with Steemit, quality needs to be the priority so don't think if you're pumping the platform full of junk here that you can jump ship and it will work for you there. I don't think it's as simple as that :):)
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