Why are Steemit accounts taking so long to be approved?

I recommended friends to sign up to Steemit, yet accounts still have not been approved for 7 days.

What's causing this hold-up and how does the Steemit platform expect to have mass adoption when signing up takes so long?

People will just forget about the Steemit account they set up if they have to wait 7 days for approval and move on to something else.

I know about the "fast" way to set up accounts, but that doesn't help those with zero Steem.