Idk, people sort of like the simpleness of Facebook and have no care in the world if it violates some of their privacy on the internet.
I really don't know if steem will really work that great either becuase 1) There aren't very many people who are really "up for" dealing with cryptocurrencies at this time; and 2) There have been other social networks that pay based on posts/views/likes that kind of failed even though you have a very small amount of people who do use it, but get paid very little over time (example tsu.co)
Simpleness and ease of use by tech n00bs were also the big selling points of AOL in its day.
Good point, but I'm still confused about what you were trying to say above. YouTube "Red" now does this, but it's not necessarily taking off by any means (at least I don't think?). There are tons of other social media sites (reddit, tumblr, pinterest, twitter, etc. etc.), are you saying that you think some time in the future there will be people who would rather run software for their social media needs rather than quickly just connecting to the internet?
edit: referring to this
My take is that Facebook will suffer the same fate as AOL This will not be from another proprietary social networking provider, or from a crypto currency specific network such a Steem. It will be from an open protocol that will allow users to choose their own social networking provider and software much as is the case today with email, web browsing, SMS etc. Such questions as payment for content by whom and to whom, and with what form of money will be addressed by the individual providers, their contributors, and their viewers much as is the case for example with web hosting today.
They will use a protocol rather than a proprietary service, much as is the case with email today. Some will connect to a provider such as is the case with many email services today, others will run their own social media client, while other will also run their own social media server. Using Gmail is technically no different form using Facebook. The critical difference is that the person on the other end does not have to use the same provider, or even use a provider at all.
Social media today is where email was for the most part in the 1980s and early 1990's. One can only communicate within a proprietary walled garden with others who were in the same walled garden.
Email circa 1990
AOL members can send email to AOL members
Prodigy members can only send email to Prodigy members
CompuServe members can only send email to CompuServe members
...
Email circa 2016
Person A can send an email using their own server running Trisquel GNU/Linux (100% Free Software and totally open hardware) to person B using a Microsoft Windows RT tablet and Microsoft Live email. (The most extreme case proprietary software and locked down hardware). Persons A and B likely have extremely different points of view on privacy and freedom for example; however they can still communicate by email.
Social Media circa 2016
One can reply to a Reddit post only on Reddit
One can reply to a Bitcointalk post only on Bitcointalk
One can reply to a Facebook post only on Facebook
...
Edit: Breaking down the walled gardens and forcing competitors to cooperate with each other through an open protocol will drive down both costs to the user and profits to the former walled garden providers. Costs in social media are largely paid for via privacy and profits in social media are in many cases generated by spying and surveillance.
