And therein lies a big part of the issue. The only way to bring people over is to mention the money opportunity. But when all the underlying voting, SP, curation mechanics, etc are what truly affect the rewards, that's where your run of the mill social network people get lost and will turn around and head home.
This whole experience suffers from complexity. Power through simplicity is key.
Those are only pieces if they want to get involved. Simply posting, voting and commenting is enough to earn some...even if not huge. But why shouldn't bigger payouts to those who put forth the effort to have good stuff, or those who know how to maximize payouts.
Most people have no clue how a car, a tv, or a computer actually work on the inside...but they don't care since they just want to use it (which is fine.) I see this along the same way. However many people do slowly ramp up their knowledge because care enough to have questions.