You know me, I think you're dead on with this analysis. But there is a deep and essential reason that it's right that a lot of your respondents aren't looking at or aware of, and I often can't determine which it is.

It's this:

Nobody wants your filthy money if they can't buy anything they want with it.

It's that simple. It's the point that we've been hammering on for years and yet which seems to be lost on developers and crypto cultists. Just because a "coin" exists doesn't mean that people will want it. Nor does it mean that they should want it. And what does it mean to have a "currency" that you can't do anything useful with, anyway?

Let's try a different script:

User: I really love this guy's art.

Us: What if you could tip them to show how much you like it?

User: Cool! But how?

Us: Find stuff you like on this site, hit the tip button, and voosh. Creator gets a little dosh.

User: How do I get it to give away?

Us: Well, you could just buy it. Or you can earn it yourself from folks by making good stuff they like or finding good stuff other folks want to see.

User: Neat! I can see the value! How do I get in?

And – that's the whole thing falls apart, because the developers of the Steem blockchain never wanted the above to actually happen.

After all, people can get clear utility out of that flow. Everybody involved knows what they're there for. There's no judgment if you're a creator and you want to pull the money out you've earned for being a creator because everyone involved want you to use that money. There is an implicit reason to invest real money if you want to, in order to be able to reward people who are making content you like (see Flattr). There's an implicit reason to create, to curate, to be involved.

And there has to be a near trivial, frictionless way to get on board with something as simple as a straightforward sign-up in a reasonable amount of time. The user has to get value out of the system from day one, hour one, minute two – real value, not necessarily monetary value. The user has to have a beneficial experience.

But that's not what people on the Steem blockchain seem to want in terms of user experience or intent.

SMTs don't actually bring useful things to the table. There's no real script that requires an SMTs you exists for user value to be created. The only thing that they seem to do is provide another venue for speculation, which does nothing for users.

And that's a shame. It could have been so different.