darkcoin brought new people into the cryptosphere
How many?
Compare with Steem.
If the ratio is less than 100:1 I'd be surprised, and will likely very rapidly expand to 1000:1 or 10000:1 if not higher.
What is Steem's attrition rate on new signups? Since no one is compiling this data accurately, we don't know if Steem is failing or not.
I don't know the number, but regardless of attrition rate it there are still orders of magnitude more people actively using it than were brought into the cryptosphere by darkcoin. Come on, it isn't even close. Just look at the volume of substantive comments being posted which is sort of a Proof of Actual (non-attritted) User. Unless you think Ned has hired an army of sock puppets in the Philippines to pretend to be users. That is possible, of course, but I just don't believe it.
That doesn't mean a competitor to Steem couldn't do even better.
The attrition rate matters w.r.t. to the bolded text I wrote, as to whether they can cross the chasm from the blocknerds very motivated types, to the masses.
It is not clear yet if Steem can cross the chasm from gfs of blockchain nerds being coaxed by their bfs to post on Steem, to a wider demographic. Remember Beyonce and professional investors measure importance in terms of the demographic's global share of the population. Blockchain nerds and their bitches isn't likely a very large share of the population.
Why would you find relevant a comparison of a silly anonymous coin to a blogging site that pays out crypto-currency. Of course the latter is going to have more participation. That is a no brainer.
The issue that matters is if Steem can not just suck in (the 100,000 to 1 million) Bitcoin nerds and their gfs, but new people from outside of Bitcoin. Do we see evidence of that?
If usership is 7500, then Steem hasn't even gotten 10% of the Bitcoin community to be active yet. Of course it is early yet and usership might be growing fast. Has anyone projected how long until they reach all Bitcoin's usership?