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Depends on how you define use.

From what I've seen the costs for customer JSON opperations are very low (This is how steem monsters works) So it would be reasonable that a privately owned business only creates accounts that are capable of being readily used on their site. But if you want to do more with them then you'll have to actually buy some steem and power it up.

Assuming it has a few starters the first guide will be how to sell your first steemmonsters card to fund your account so you can use steemit and not play the game lol... Without a foundation of reasonable interaction no one will stick around.