I don't really see them as competitors either. That said I think if busy keeps evolving in a positive direction it could conceivably render steemit obsolete. If the devs of busy continue to solicit user feedback and can incorporate it into releases in a timely fashion faster and better than steemit.com can, why would users stick with steemit.com? Sure some might out of nothing more than loyalty I guess, but I don't believe I would. For me it's not about loyalty, it's more about functionality (so long as the underlying philosophy remains inline with my libertarian / free market perspective - to that I will remain steadfastly loyal).

Steemit and busy are not competitors in principle, they both share much the same philosophical foundations. In practice, they carry out that philosophy differently. I've said it many times before, I have a huge respect for @dan's engineering skills for backend infrastructure and his character and the principles he espouses. Regarding managing a user interface project, not so much. He has had some fantastically skilled UI / UX devs under his care like @cass and @svk, but for whatever reason the end result hasn't been that great, and I believe it's due to the way those efforts are managed, which I attribute to @dan.

I'm not on the inside, I don't know the inner workings and dynamics of cryptonomics or steemit.inc. I have watched them for several years now so my opinion is not without its reasons. Some may think I'm being overly critical and perhaps so. But when I see how well the busy UI and UX is engineered it only serves to strengthen that opinion.

My last role as a software engineer was the lead developer for a small startup company that created a web based mapping application. That was 10 years ago and many things have changed. However, the process I used to gather user feedback, evaluate usability and plan changes to produce the best result for my management, customers and their user base has not changed very much. It's less about technology than it is about process and people.