I don't think we are anywhere near ready for mainstreaming and definitely not ready to become a charity organization that hands out value to the needy. It will kill the system.
You are the 2nd person I encountered this week that was complaining about how we are not ready for mass market integration and that charitable causes and hand outs will kill the platform.
I have a dissenting view on the matter as I think that we are at the right time to humanize the Steem Blockchain.
I have been in the platform for 6 months now and I have grown my account almost at my goal of 1k SP with both earnings, conversions of SBD to SP and some fiat invested.
I have invited some people and had lost some of them, some have stayed and invested, not substantial that they are dolphins but at least they are at minnow level.
I thought several people would really make it big here but even with me engaging them, supporting them and mentoring them they just couldn't last long and they really tried, they were engaged, commented a lot and was even curied a number of times but the interest eventually waned because Steemit really takes a lot of time. I spend a min of 6 hours each day sometimes as long as 16 hours if I don't have work or its a holiday.
Now if we only focused on those that are still here and posting without taking care of those that newly enter we will doom ourselves into becoming isolated. We don't want to become North Korea right that we only worship the self appointed leaders and bastions of quality. We want freedom and also a good nurturing environment to let new account set roots and grow.
My 6 months here has taught me the importance of a community and engagement. So when I created the account for charity @giftinkindph I knew what its purpose is and how to make it stronger.
I know that I can only gain attention if I make the post good and not appeal on the merits that I need pity but on that what I wrote is done well formatted, with good pictures, a clear purpose and a way of giving back to the Steemit community.
I delegated a good part of my SP so that it will get to a minnow size and help support other charities here. All earnings that it will have will not be cashed out as a portion of it will be used to powerup.
I shilled the shit out of the post i made in @giftinkindph to everyone I know but I don't have the mentality that they owe me their upvote or for them to donate. If they do upvote and donate well good especially if they care about the advocacy or it resonated with their values but if not then I don't hold it against them because each one of us have topics and advocacy that we care about.
So my charity account will further our vision but in the same time strengthen it, add more SP especially if we have surplus donations like last year that we could not use for other things because all school, supplies, food, medcine and other stuff has been taken care of and we could not return the surplus and just had it in the bank account earning a paltry interest but will be added to this years budget. If we had a Steemit account we could have used it to power up, curate for charity organizations and kept adding value to the account. We are looking long term here.
Also for like people in Venezuela the earnings they get here means the difference of eating food or eating trash, so by helping them we give them more opportunities. I like that humanitarian side of Steemit. It is a way to help people from across the world and you know they will use it for food. Although I saw an upfundme earlier to buy 2 sets of luggage because they were going on vacation. That was a WTF moment.