Well, I'm not really trying to recruit anyone yet, I've only been around for a few days (ignore the creation date of my account, it's been inactive for months). But I can see the diffidence, I can understand it.

The thing is, in this day and age, everybody is a believer in something. Social networks create factions, and factions create fanaticism. Everybody tries to sell you something, an idea(l), a product, a cause. If somebody was to come to me with the promise of making money with a "new system", I'd be at least dubious. Hell, I've sat 3 hours in a bar with a friend who was trying to recruit me into Amway by saying "this is not a pyramid scheme. It looks like a pyramid scheme, it works like a pyramid scheme, but I promise you, it's not a pyramid scheme!". It doesn't really help when there's cryptos involved, even now that, as you say, they are out there: most people don't know what to believe, are they "a bubble", are they "imaginary, intangible currency", are they "the money of the future"?

I think if and when I'll try to get people to know about Steem I'd focus on the social network angle, and I'd make sure I really know the mechanisms behind cryptocurrencies, so that I can explain it to them in simple yet effective words. Most of all, I'd specify it's really, really hard work. People tend to be less diffident when you explain that whatever you're offering them is not really for free :)