While there is a lot of abundance in the world, there is also a lot of scarcity in the world. For one, everyone's life is limited. We don't live forever. And we cannot be everything for everyone in one lifetime.

Second, land, gold, and such resources are scarce. In steemit marketplace, steem is scarce. You wouldn't be motivated to write this article if it wasn't incentivized with money, no?

While I totally get the "decentralization" point, and esp in steemit "attention is money" is certainly true, therefore "everyone's minds are money" makes sense.

There is still scarcity in many resources. And no matter how much the technology improves, it will still take some work for that lunch to be served.

So yes, there is no free lunch.

But as market and technology develops, a lunch gets cheaper and cheaper, so more people get out of the poverty cycle and have more time and opportunities for higher pursuits.