You're preachin' to the choir, Jon! I've been on this particular soapbox for a really long time... and it's amazing just how much it all mirrors the early days of the web, itself. The early "web nerds" really wanted mass adoption of their awesome "toy" but at the same time they were terrified of giving up their technical "reins" to the Internet and accept that we now had "My mom from Topeka is sharing recipes on the Internet."
But the whole "your mom from Topeka" scenario only became a reality because Steve Case at AOL created an "idiot interface" that didn't require anyone to have much technical savvy. Click the button and go. End of story.
So yeah, we need to get away from crypto (mostly) AND I think we need to distance ourselves from the "make money" angle. Creating content, gaming or whatever floats your boat is the primary driver, the rewards are merely a consequence. People don't sign up for YouTube (well some might) to make money, they sign up to make videos. But using the rewards as the lead sales pitch is folly... because most people will just end up disappointed if that's the success metric.