They chose a different approach. I am not sure yet if it is a wise one, but it could be...
I think they want to cater to the investors first, then get everyone and their uncle on board.
This HF is clearly hurting onboarding new small accounts and it is done on purpose.
We need to push the price up to get FOMO again, then they can proceed with exponential growth of the userbase. Imagine if Steem is worth 10$ for a prolonged period of time because investors love the coin. Every small account >500 SP will be able to make a decent buck.
Yeah, I hear you. However, I don't think that is possible as long as @steemit continues to power down more than 325K per week. I might be wrong though.
Also, even though I can see how this potentially could benefit us in the long haul, I think it's likely to do more harm than good, as the existing Steemians, especially "wealthier" accounts that already have a decent amount of SP will continue to grow larger, in an even faster pace than before due to reward changes, long before onboarding of new users would begin... And that usually doesn't look good.
Those are often the typical "red flags" that makes people anxious and skeptical, which ultimately would become the biggest obstacles for us to get new people to join. And truth to be told, one of the biggest (if not the biggest) problem we have right now, before HF21, is that newcomers leave when they struggle to earn...
That being said, I hope I am wrong, and I truly hope that HF21 will be as good as many people claims it to be.
I don't think the rich getting richer is a problem in the short term. It just should not stay this way in the long run.
Why do I think this? In the last year, whales and orcas lost a combined 25% in terms of steem holdings to dolphins and minnows. That means reverting this change will not be a problem in the short term (1 year).
Taskmaster and others have shown countless times that the distribution of steem was working under HF20 rules. Tomorrows changes might revert this, at least in the short term.