Yes, you are right. A new account with 0 HP will quickly run into the resource credit limits. It is by design to prevent spam.
To comfortably interact with Hive blockchain, only small amount of Hive Power is needed. There are many on Hive who will happily delegate these small amounts to the new users, so they can use Hive without any resource credit limitations and build up their own hive power.
I have done this in the past, and will be happy to do so again for tens or hundreds of users if anybody faces these limitations. There are many who would do the same. All new users need to do is ask and use them.
I believe any new user can accumulate enough hive power with their participation in no time, so that they don't have these limitation anymore.
For these reasons, I think new users are not really required to buy coins. If you know anybody who are having resource credits limitations and would like some hp delegated, let them know. I will be happy to help.
You do bring up a good point. We do need to figure out better ways to make sure new users don't face these limitations. Do you know what is the smallest amount of hp that is needed to use Hive without rc limit issues?
Thank You.
I am not really sure though, but I guess 20HP is the minimum. currently, I have 50HP (delegated). which is enough in my case. Currently, I doing a experiment which is rising from scratch (from 0 HP) to see how it works.