I think the issue is Tone doesn't think people's time/effort has value. Then the system appears to be only money goes out but no value added into the system.

Money goes in easily and goes out easily as well with liquid steem token. Powering up is a choice for investors not a requirement to use the system. "Trick" or give user incentive to power up is not equal to force them to be vested. I think this is very different from ponzi.

In the second half of the hangout, Tone started to imply Steem is not even a true blockchain based, only a small group of smart people has the right to determine. That looks pretty desperate to me.

Anyway, it's good to hear different voice.

PS, you might want to an article wrote by Hive account@dan in response of an CoinDesk article https://steemit.com/steem/@dan/response-to-coindesk-article-steem-provokes-doubt-of-market-observers