That is why mom doesn't join.
I personally know >1 "moms" who have joined and are actively participating. I didn't push them to it, but I mentioned it and they decided on their own to sign up (my interest is more in seeing whether they are interested than trying to sell it). Many more are apparent on the site.
The voting circle jerk as you put it
may put them off and cause them to lose interesting, but my bet would be on bad hosting and the limited feature set being bigger issues.
I've only seen 1 mom out of 32.000 that have joined. How many have you seen?
Of course you'll get the occasional mom who is close enough to the groupthink.
The circle-jerk won't put the deluded off soon. It has to end like the DAO. The deluded fight reality to the end.
People are going to try hard because they really want a blockchain social network to work. They will exert effort beyond reason, especially while they can continue to pretend to print money out-of-thin-air.
When most everyone is powering up, it is possible to print money out-of-thin-air. Because very few are selling so the price is supported. Also apparently have enough deluded investors or speculators to keep that tiny float up. Insiders might even be manipulating the price on the exchanges.
Good for me if they can keep the price up.
I see they had a 1% visitor rate from coinmarketcap banner ads, which is reasonably good. Demographic is coming significantly from our existing blocknerd zone.
The incentive structure is all about appealing to the delusion with the content that is written. There is no economic incentive to organize around different communities than the to-da-moon blockchains for everything delusion.
Didn't you know that blockchains will cure cancer, bring Jesus back before 2025, and render driverless cars deprecated. The blockchain is a solution for everything. We just have to find a way to make it happen. We must.
Note Steemit is accumulating numerous copyright violations. I've read it is $150 per infraction in potential liability.