Maybe by this time next year, I can claw and scrape my way to 500SP, and that would be pretty amazing. MOST people would look at that and declare "That's too frakkin' much work!" and they end up being all those dormant accounts.
I am hoping that communities will help the niches. Let's say you make it to 500 SP in a year. What is the time worth to you? at current prices of 3 it is about 1500 dollars, not a great deal considering the effort. What about in 2 years if it is 50 dollars? This year you would have made 25,000. Next year, you might be able to add 750 more SP by working and building network. 2 years from today that will be worth 37500 at 50 dollars. During that time you could add another 1000 with a 50,000 value. 3 years hard work for 112,500 dollars and you still hold all your Steem and can use it to grow further. 5 years from now as competition is high and steem hard to get? So much work for so little is invalid if you believe in the long-view. I hope we are going to get there.