When people do sign up, we need to find them, and we need to be able to cater for and support the spenders and the savers.

We are at a stage where we can't afford to support a lot of spenders. That's because investors are pretty much the only source of income at the moment. The rewards should go to people who are interested in growing their accounts in order to be part of an emerging middle class, the existence of which will help make this DPoS system more decentralized and secure.

I don't think it's even a very good idea to market Steem as a way to earn. It is mathematically impossible for most Steemians to be earners, at least not for very long unless we can find a group of irrational speculators willing throw their money away forever to support a bunch of people earning something for essentially the same thing people do fo free on centralized social media.

What we need is builders and investors with a long-term outlook. What we should build is apps that are so compelling that a consumer class of users will want to spend fiat to use them. Gambling and gaming come to mind first. Steem should never be marketed as a way to earn for the masses. It will not and cannot ever be that.

Frankly, I don't think people who complain how difficult it is to become a minnow while simultaneously wanting to cash out and spend are worth very much. Steem is like a startup. Every holder of SP is a shareholder. The kind of shareholders of a startup who want to cash out as much as possible right from the start are basically dead weight. Sure, there are some exceptions. Those people are all consistent producers of high-quality content.