ROI is not the purpose of social networking, and trying to design Steem to produce ROI first reduces it's value to society for mere lunch money for whales.

Based on looking into Larimer some time back, I think it was a great concept/vehicle he chose to experiment with. His goal was to figure a means to spread tokens easily, with little impediment/hoops for those receiving them. His logic being that the easier it is to get tokens into the masses hands, the better chance for mass adoption. I assume the unspoken part of this logic is that if it were to attain a certain mass it would then become unstoppable.

Given how addicted the masses are to social networking (damn it does seem like a drug to so many, just look at the zombies who can't pull their faces out of their phones for a minute), it would seem the perfect vehicle to achieve this. Sadly, he failed to account for human nature and how that would affect/skew when larger holders could set up their own structures within the main structure.

My dad was keen on the idea that many ideas looked great on paper, but would most often fail once people were involved.