As long as we aren't always jumping at opportunities to ostracize others, I think it is the best tool available to make sure the community moves in a positive direction. But it requires the community to continuously move in the direction of consensus about what it stands for and where it's headed.
Yesterday reinforced my excitement for this community. I came here 3 weeks ago and have very little steem power and have yet to develop a deep network of trust. I do however have a lot of passion for community and a desire to participate. Matt was in the same boat but instead of passion for community, he waved money in everyones face. I was really worried when I saw him pulling in $1000, with some upvotes from trusted whales in the community.
I am not going to call him a scam artist, for all I know he could be offering a real opportunity (every bone in my body says he was not, but just to give him the benefit of the doubt). For me, the problem wasn't really him being here and sharing his plan, even if it was a scam...it was that he was getting a lot of attention and support.
Minnows have to "go through the grind" but if you invest money into steemit, you can take a huge shortcut. This is kind of a loophole but still, many who invest in steem are interested in the community aspect of the currency and have something to offer, they like helping out others. But if a guy talking like that, making huge promises and few details and with 0 stake in the community comes in, I would hope a majority of the community would blow him off, and thankfully they did.
When he started his list of people who were "disqualified from playing", I replied to him and explained in a peaceful way why people felt threatened by his post. I tried to represent the feelings being communicated in steemitchat and the discord channels. As I say his post being flagged down, I kept getting upvotes on my comment. Since he didn't reply, I made a stupid parody of his post which quickly received 78 upvotes.
Of course it felt good to be heard after 3 weeks of feeling a little underappreciated as a minnow , but it felt even better that someone like me who only has a passion for community and a desire to make great content was encouraged to speak my voice despite being new here. Meanwhile someone who obviously just saw steemit primarily as an opportunity to make money without much regard for community was left out in the cold in the end.
You make a good point about whether or not this would have been accepted if he were well known and had good rep and lots of SP here.....I think we will have to cross that bridge when we get to it but I hope there continues to be a strong priority placed on community and quality material, the money will come, there is way too much talent and creativity here, it has to.