I agree with you. When i hear people talking about creating campaigns to attract new users when we can barely engage the users who have already started an account, it makes me wonder if anyone else sees the elephant in the room. I love the site, but the average person is not going to stick around to possibly one day build enough steem power to earn some money.
They will stick around if it's fun and connects them with people through good features.
Only 1% of internet users create content. The other 99% consume it. Pretending the masses are suddenly going to become content creators for a few bucks is delusional and even if they did, it would have to be easier to do so than it currently is.
Steemit is an interesting experiment I'm happy to be involved in, but it's nowhere near ready for mass adoption in it's current form.
It really seems quite clear once you say it yourself, doesn't it? We've all been there before...using a social media site and making no money. We didn't do it for the hopes of becoming a millionaire. People didn't leave MySpace for Facebook because they were earning money. They left because it was just a better experience overall. That's how Steemit needs to be. The money issue will mostly take care of itself.