Can someone explain WTF happened while I was away

I used to love writing on steemit. Do to certain unfortunate circumstances i couldnt use the platform for a while. then i just kinda lost interest and got in to other things. I actually wrote some articles that made quite a bit of money and steem backed dollars were way up at the time. i remember it being easy to send my steem to an exchancge and trade it for whatever coins that exchange supported. i know it wasnt poloniex which will be cutting off us customers soon anyway. i think it was either Binance when it supported us customers or more likely Bittrex.

I came back 7 months ago and there is this hive network that it has split into which is kind of duplicated by this Ecency platform. Steem is incorporating into the tron network and im friggin lost.

If i write and poast on steem is it automaticly posted on ecency and hive. are the payouts seperate is it all the same account.

i followed the instructions to get the tron extension wallet and load my mnew tron address. it seems to have worked. are steem and steem backed dollars still going to be the power and payout sources of the steem platform or is it all switching over to trx. Also can i convert my steem to trx in my steem wallet without sending it to an exchange, is it all going to convert automatically at some point and what is the point of tron on the steem platform.

it seems like steem has become more focused on the asian communties and users since i left.

i forget how to add pictures to posts.

what is this hive network and Ecency that split off of steem and what is the point. can i sell my hive somehow. I forget how to do all that and it looks like i can only send it to another users account. id be happy if i could convert all my steem to trx somehow. if anyone knows how to explain what happened and why and would be nice enough to take the time to explain it in an understandable fashion or send some links to good articles that help explain this mess... id be very appreciative.