I was one of the early adopters of Bitcoin. I read about Bitcoin when
it was valued at 10 USD and bought some (not a lot unfortunately) soon after.
Unlike today, back then nobody talked about Bitcoin and blockchains and
even fewer people understood the technology behind it.
Buying Bitcoin seemed like a crazy idea to most people I talked too.
For me, it was nothing more than an experiment.
Yet, I was one of the few that understood that
something big, really big had happened
and I was there to witness its inception:
Truly Decentralized Social Systems.

A few years later now, like most of you I am equally curious about this new Steem thing.
I quickly signed up and found exactly what I expected:
Steem content is primarily about Steem.

This is typical for new technologies.
At the inception of the internet, the whole internet talked just about the internet.
At first there were personal webpages containing nothing more then
"Welcome to my personal webpage!"
At their inception most people used instant messengers (IM) like
AOL, ICQ for nothing more then discussing the very nature of instant messaging.
Consequently, social media and the Web 2.0 were used for discussing the
Web 2.0 although only few envisioned what that would be.

While this is okay in the beginning,
there is a consequence that most people underestimate: hypes.
The direct consequence of the Internet initial hype was the Dotcom bubble of 2000,
when Internet company stocks first gained, then lost a lot of value.

Expectations of the Internet were simply to high for this early stage in 2000
and this is why the price of stocks eventually had to fall.
Yet, as we surely know now,
the Internet was not overrated as a technology,
it just did not yet meet the expectations.

Back in University I learned a very
useful concept about judging new technology: Gartner's Hype Cycle

This graph tells us that all new technologies initially approach a Peak of Inflated Expectations.
After the dead sure Disillusionment phase they rise on a Slope of Enlightenment until
eventually reaching a Plateau of Productivity.

So, what do we learn from this?
While the hype is not here yet for Steem, it will surely come.
Maybe this is also the case for the whole crypto/altcoin scene as a whole.
When the initial hype is over, a phase of Disillusionment will follow.
Steem will loose value and interest from parts of the community.

But that's okay because after a while (sometimes months or years)
it will rise again to what it really is:
A productive platform for content creation

Only then, nobody will talk about it anymore.
Much less newspaper articles will cover it.
The initial enthusiasm will be gone, but it will work like a charm.
We will just use it, like we use Social Media, but it will be "our Social Media".
We will truly own the content.
So hold and enjoy the rough ride through the hype cycle.

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle