The sellable product we have at our disposal here is paid promotion but unfortunately the 'community' has decided that it's not acceptable to buy promotion, or upvotes but autovoters which exacerbate the problems you describe are used with aplomb.

As @nonameslefttouse put so eloquently, we just have a load of product and no buyers except of course other producers.
Sadly this will never change because the top producers are doing Ok being supported by their peers and thus have zero incentive to change what for them, is a profitable system.

As for mass adoption, the same big earners, who are linked to developers don't want that because there would be less to go around so to thwart adoption, they simply refuse to create mobile Dapps which of course what the masses use to consume with these days.

Nothing has changed in 3 years, nothing will ever change despite the best efforts of a number of people fighting against the tide.