@kimzilla, thanks for the thoughtful comment!

Different social platforms have their own "personalities." Steemit is probably the closest to a true community you can find online, today. There really hasn't been anything like this since Xanga was pushed out of the way by MySpace and Facebook... and they were not an "improvement" because they largely encouraged taking the "content" out of social... thumbs-up and smileys were suddenly "enough." The "old ways" that were replaced had started out of blogging sites that added social features.

So, in a sense, Steemit marks a return to something we used to do.