I'd like that, too. But as I understand it, anything like this they implement might have to come from the founders' stakes or some software layer, since the main code is already baked in. Another way to look at Steemit, though, is that the whole thing already is a giant referral reward mechanism. If you have lots of Steem today, your money is worth more because the price is increasing. If you have a blog post that's good, you can promote it on the Internet and get paid for anyone who comes in and upvotes it. If you want to tell others about the moneymaking opportunity of posting or voting, get them here and they will thank you with upvotes. Even if those aren't going to you directly, every new person is adding and curating content + maybe bringing in money, hopefully power ups. So it is kind of a referral system already is you believe that we all benefit from growth.
EDIT: It seems they may be considering some incentives for referral signups after July 4. We will see...
Trying to figure out the economic scheme of Steem is difficult because there are a lot of moving parts. It seems to have potential because of the viral element and it looks like the perfect vehicle to achieve mainstream adoption. You say there is an incentive to vote and curate but why would you want to bring in new people if it dilutes the very limited jackpot of rewards to be distributed?
You do want to bring in people but you mainly want to bring in Steem Power am I right? So from what I understand Steem looks "underpriced" from a speculator perspective but then you do not want to hold Steem without powering up because holding Steem is like playing hot potato?
What economic strategy would you suggest? Are you going to be buying Steem in order to vest it for years?
@dan -- why can't I answer dana-edwards? (Next comment over). Can we have more than 6 comments deep and be able to comment more than once per minute? What if I were responding to my fan base? I'd need rapid fire posting.
@dana-edwards the more people that come to steem, the more specualtion there is and the higher the market cap of STEEM goes, so we all win :) see coinmarketcap.com
@bobsunday if you want to post more frequently, you need more Steem Power.