The speed of the distribution will change depending on the inflation rate of steem (new coins issued to authors and curators) and on the behave of whales. If inflation is low and whales and selfish, the distribution may not be enought to keep new users comming to the plataform and everyone will hurt.
It's even harder when you think of other languages and without them steem will never grow global. We have good people on steem trying to make national projects, like for portuguese, but it's almost impossible to make relevant money writing in other language besides english. So, if steem is to really go global and became what it is suposed to, the distribution speed should increase. You are right, it's better after HF19, but maybe not fast enought yet.
And it's not really about social capital. A famous brazillian youtuber could come here with hundreds or thousands of fans and still would be a minnow since very few people in Brazil have any SP to vote for him. Today, it's more like a plutocracy + aristocratic system where you have to either put thousands of dolars or be connected to the nobility class to become relevant. What you are saying is that connecting to the nobility is possible and I agree, but people are saying that maybe it's not the best thing to do with this plataform.
Everyone belives on the concept, but people have different expectations. Let's keep discussing until we find a way to make everyone happy and rich. =)
Cheers!
RE: Will Steem succeed or commit suicide?