Early last month I wrote a post wondering whether or not what we did on the social media side of STEEM—good, bad or indifferent—really had any influence over the typical investor looking for ROI, or if there were other factors that would drive their decisions.

I've decided it would be a good idea to open it up to those of you in the community who would care to weigh in on this subject, because I think it's important to see what everyone is truly thinking.

I say that, because over the last two years it has been posited in one form or another that things like bid bots (now more of a moot point than before), reward pool abuse, circle voting, flag wars or just even "downvoting for no particular reason," plus whatever other inanity that one might take exception to—all keep investors away.

To do this, I guess I'm thinking of the investor that has some resource large enough that they could power up at least a couple hundred thousand STEEM if they so desired. But they're not necessarily looking to use the platform or invest a lot of time in into, too.

So, not so much a typical user trying to earn rewards through blogging, etc., but one who's looking to get some decent ROI, however they might do that.

Currently, as far as I know, if you're not going after author rewards, the main choices to earn are curation, delegation leasing, and the 'interest' that all stake accrues thanks to the percentage coming from inflation.

So, that's the type of individual I'm thinking of when the term investor is used. They might have an account, and technically that makes them a STEEM user, but in reality, they're not here to post, comment, or even manually curate, become part of the community, etc. They want somewhere to park some funds where they will get decent to awesome return.

To me, that's different than the typical user, where I would say many absolutely do care about what goes on here, the direction the platform and the community are taking, and how we ultimately interact with one another. And while an investor might have an eye on how many are using the platform and how they feel about it, I wonder if that's what they are really looking at first, second, third, fourth, etc.

So, what do you think? You can select as many options as you like. If you feel inclined to provide a little more along with your choices, please do so. Especially if you choose other.

I know there are at least a few who have problems with dpoll for some reason (technical or otherwise), so don't feel like you need to go there to participate. Through dpoll or however you accessed this post is fine. I'd rather have the input and the participation if y'all are reading this post and are inclined to speak your mind.

Image source—Pixabay

In my opinion, investors are most certainly looking at and care about:

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The number of users (12.33%) 9 / 73 What Steemit Inc. does (10.96%) 8 / 73 The direction the platform is headed, if in any (9.59%) 7 / 73 Inflation (8.22%) 6 / 73 How the dApps are performing (8.22%) 6 / 73 How much and ease of ROI (8.22%) 6 / 73 Whether there's marketing and how good it is (8.22%) 6 / 73 Downvoting 'just because' (5.48%) 4 / 73 Governance (5.48%) 4 / 73 What the platform is, does, or how it's defined (5.48%) 4 / 73 Decentralization (4.11%) 3 / 73 Reward pool abuse (2.74%) 2 / 73 Flag wars (2.74%) 2 / 73 How we treat one another generally (2.74%) 2 / 73 Other (please specify) (2.74%) 2 / 73 Vote buying/selling (1.37%) 1 / 73 Circle voting (1.37%) 1 / 73