Awesome article!

It's a chicken and egg problem.  Early adopters of any technical platform tend to be tech-minded people with technical interests.  Even so, we're beginning to see more and more beauty and travel articles appearing, and that will eventually broaden out into a more diverse array of interests as people who stay for those will foray into new territory.

It's cliche, but it does take time.

While valid, I would point out that it should be expected at a low user count.  Girls make more money right now, later on guys might when a female population shows.

Some people might walk in here and drop 10k to become an instant sensation.

I get the frustration, I really do.  I think over time with more users coming it will even itself out on it's own.

ya 100% agree with you. Ive noticed the same thing and made a post a qhile back about it. steemit currently is only catering for so many different people. I said we need to be able to filter content to show only things we are interested in. But maybe the 5 categories will work.

 Nice post though, take my up vote.

Fine, upvoted because you've stimulated discussion and made an interesting proposal, but two points: 

(1) Some newbies come here and get excited. Let them. I'm not going to rain on their party. 

(2) Distinguish between circle jerk and informational postings. Yes, experienced users tire of the simple 'how to' stuff, but it is essential to have on the boards regularly. If you don't like it, ignore it, but don't downvote/flag it. 

There is no stickied content and finding old posts is a pain in the ass. Yet we are getting hundreds to thousands of new people coming to the site daily. There is a demand for "how to" posts about how Steemit works. Yesterday, another writer posted some information about how the voting system works, and to see the types of comments he got in response proves to me that a ton of people genuinely didn't know (before reading his article) when they were supposed to be voting. 

If you're downvoting that kind of content, then you doing a disservice to Steemit and to people who do not yet understand how to make the most of the opportunity it offers.

Oh boy, where do i start.
"However, there is nothing keeping this from fading at this point, just slowly and painfully. And this is not what anyone wants to happen!"
This is at least level 2 on the contradiction scale.

'Steem only has speculative value. That's it! Without speculative value and a strong supply/demand market, the community will not survive, your STEEM will be worthless."
According to economics I can say this exact quote about (instert anything here).
"However, 99.9999% of the world doesn't give two shits!"
Highly assumptive are we?

"These excuses are hurting the value of any STEEM you have or will have."
Should I lol or lmao, your choice.

"I'm not too proud or disillusioned to admit that she's right!"
Your girlfriend is right. Right!!! (s/)

"Every new account created on Steemit should be required to choose (say) 5 different tags/topics. From those topics, their home feed would be automatically populated with posts related to just those topics. That's it."

Do you know what decentralized mean? 

I could go on but it looks like the sheeple are voting you up ( i did as well).

You have some valid concerns. However, I look at steemit as a much bigger platform that will evolve into something beyond what we are currently seeing. Participation and contribution will pay rewards for those who put in the work.

Ha Ha ha....  He's annoyed because Steemit officially went public July 4th, and in 12 days it doesn't suit his girlfriend.

...and the fact it is that this is still in BETA....

Give it a year, and then decide. It's amazing how much people want "for nuthin"...

Steemit is FREE to use. It's a NEW project.  It will find it's following eventually. Give it time.

I here ya.  It is a little disconcerting when two-thirds of the post on the main page are all about Steemit.  BUT (and this is a big but), I've been here for about a month and I have to say that my favorites posts are usually about...you guessed it...Steemit.  Why?  Because this thing is both addicting and different.  It's like nothing that has ever existed before.  It's taken me a month of reading to just begin to get my mind around it.  And, contrary to your suggestion, I think there's a lot of noobs here who are EXACTLY like me in that regard.  They want to read and learn about Steemit.  To some degree, the more we feed that beast the better.  

Having said that, I do go out of my way to vote up unrelated content, and I think all dolphins and whales need to make a concerted effort to do the same.

I'm writing about gardening stuff because it's my passion and I want to see more content.

I share some of the same concerns. But, as I wrote in a recent post, YouTube content creators are going to start seriously poring into steemit to monetize their subscriber base, which will massively diversify the trending articles and change the appeal to general audiences to be the same as YouTube … except now you can get paid for interacting with your favorite content creators. 

Check it here https://steemit.com/steemit/@shayne/youtube-will-dominate-steemit

If I could give this more than one vote I would. I'm a minnow so they don't count much anyway. At least not yet.

I am going to speak from the perspective of a new user who is not in the tech world and, frankly, I know little about crypto and I find the topic rather boring.  What @jacobt has suggested is quite valid. He is suggesting that the new user experience be improved upon. And he is right. There are many social medias out there, why should anyone stick around on Steemit? I would go so far as to say that of the 250 that join each day another 250 or more don't bother and they don't come back. And they tell their friends to not bother.

I am only here because a whale shared so much enthusiasm I came in to see what it was about. Although I signed up early enough I did nothing with it and I'm okay with that. I may never do much with it. But back to the new user experience.....

I realize that Steemit is new and experiencing growing pains. However, feedback from users is valuable if Steemit (or anything for that matter) is serious about longevity. So here is mine:

1. The site is not user friendly. There are no centralized areas of Help nor a contact to reach out to for help. 
2. The initial news feed is boring for anyone not into crypto or technical. I get it why his girlfriend did not stick around and probably won't come back. It would be more interesting if upon arrival I saw the tags/categories to select from rather than only a screen full of what the crypto/technical crowd likes.
3. The follow function does not do a damn thing. I am not alerted when someone I follow posts something new. 
Finding a user or a particular post is very difficult to do. 

All of these issues come down to organization. How the site is organized. And this place needs some organization for sure. Steemit needs to hire me! LOL!

I plan to continue to visit for now and perhaps post some more but I am an older woman with patience and curiosity. I see that this could be the start of something wonderful. 

Most people are not patient. And it WILL take people to make this work. Arguing that it is new or that the crypto/technology feed will drop away will not happen unless you get enough non-crypto/tech people to not only visit but to actually stay and become active. 

Human nature is what it is and Steemit will not change that. Take some lessons from Facebook and other sites. You don't have to like them to learn from them.

Damn, I should have just made this a post! LOL!

I would give you a spiffy gif or something but I have to work at doing that and I'm too tired to bother tonight.

Thank you for the post @jacobt. You obviously hit a button with me! I seriously doubt that you and I are the only ones with these concerns.

umad

All that sounds good except for flagging posts.

That is the exact look some of my friends gave me after seeing this site...

Great ideas. Getting new people to customize their feed immediately would be a great way to ensure they see at least one or two things that interest them. 

Flagging peoples posts is not the way to do it.  A filter checklist for the default sub that blocks nsfw, steem*, rape, and politics by default would work better.

I am still very new to the site, but my passions stem beyond the scope of just a handful of topics. I would hate to be "forced" into given topic in such a way. With that said, I love the post and do agree that from what I have seen it does look to be a bit of a #CircleJerk around these parts :P

Steemit really is a very ... shall we say 'limited' social media platform. It lacks most (all) of the features we'd demand from a platform if we weren't crypto peeps or already making serious dosh from early adopter position.

For steemit to gain any serious ground as a social media platform its going to need to implement social media tools very quickly. The currency feature is a novelty but it wont last. Especially when we watch the way content is being favored.