Of course, our efforts are not helped by the fact that the popular press has effectively painted a picture of crypto/blockchain as more of a "get rich quick" scheme than anything else

Look at Trump launching a memecoin, it's one of those examples that's tampering or staining the image of Blockchain and crypto. Now it makes people think everything in this space is all pump and dump and meme coins. At the end of the day only few understands how it works and are willing to gain experience.