However, I have onboarded quite a few people now (about 40 in the last 6 months)
Unbelievable. I mean I do believe you but in light of my own experience that seems out of this world. And you say that you have brought many kinds of people on board. I must be doing something totally wrong but when I've talked about Steem as a platform allowing bloggers to make money the response I've got from a dozen or so technical people has varied from lukewarm to borderline hostile. I've found that a lot of people get hung up on the value flow model of Steem. Yes, the value given to STEEM and SBD comes exclusively from speculators at the moment. But who the f**k cares if you can start creating content and getting paid right away without investing a dime of your money in the system? A friend of mine who held the most positive view of Steem spends hours every day on Facebook because he loves talking about stuff with his friends. He told me that he only made a few hundred at best per year or a few on Google Ads on blogspot.com back in the day. I told him I made a few thousand euros worth of STEEM and SBD Steem. I haven't been contacted by him since we met a couple of weeks ago in Tampere. I gave the URL of my blog on Steemit to another one on a piece of paper and yet another one took a picture of it with his mobile phone. I'm not going to push it with these people. I got the impression that the hostile one may have some mental issues.
I used to hang out with a social scientist about fifteen years ago when I lived Tampere. But he is a bit older and his English is poor. With one friend of mine (also in IT) who is not on any social media (except for LinkedIn maybe) and is also a go player, I discussed the possibility to create an account for a go club and finance the club activities on income generated by that Steem account but there is the problem of everyone having to create an account to be able to participate and also tax complications if the account is owned by a club or perhaps the national association.
Who else have you onboarded except for @markos86? @markos86 is a busy professional and family man. Was he into cryptocurrencies before joining Steem? I'm running out of ideas. I don't know any artistic people who've been struggling financially and eager to supplement their income by engaging in creative work except for the man who onboarded me himself. There is one young aspiring web developer in Lahti who has an account already by he's been away for over a year now. He says he's afraid of posting anything on the blockchain because it "stays there".
Before experiencing first hand the incredible resistance to new things even rational people can have I wouldn't have believed it. My hat is off to you because you've been able to persuade that many people to create Steem accounts.
Many have been students of mine or their family members so there is already a decent relationship there. There have been a few friends and friends of friends too. I only have express permission to say markos86 so I respect their privacy. @adigitalife I onboarded 10 months ago but he has only just really started. Also, some of them have started asking me to onboard a couple too. My brother @galenkp has also brought a few onto the platform also.
Early on, I tried to get a couple friends I thought would be interested from Australia and one said 'scam' the other followed the advice of the first. That would have been in march or so. pity really.
Have you tried setting the account up them through steeminvite? I have found that for a few, it was the hurdle of going to the site themselves that was the issue. Quite a few have actually signed up themselves though.
I don't understand why it is so hard for some people, what is the issue? Perhaps the idea of the money actually scares them to some degree or perhaps the warning of immutable blockchain. It could also be tax too I guess for Finns. Whatever it is, the resistance is very high.
I think it could be just like anything new for Finns, people want a crowd first. Twitter was well established in Sweden almost 2 years before Finns started really adopting. Finns in general are not early adopters.
Maybe try more one on one with a laptop?
Honestly though. I just don't get why so many seem to fear it.