I agree with you, it would be nice if wealth would be distributed a but more even. The world is often driven by dominating forces though. In bitcoin the concentration of wealth is a lot higher than in any other fiat currency. In steem we have a big steemit company that owns about 50% and many whales who own a few percentages. I think this is not a bad situation.
I think some healthy dialog about this would also be healthy but what we see in people calling steem a scam and interrogating Ned this way I did not think was super productive.
No, it certainly isn't fair to call it a scam. Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies in general are still in their infancy and as such today's cryptocurrencies are still highly speculative and potentially super volatile but there is certainly a huge future ahead for them. "Unlimited potential" is not too strong of a term. I don't really trust any of today's cryptocurrencies enough to seriously invest but I certainly think it is worthwhile to mine Gridcoin as I already use BOINC and to participate in the steem economy here. I like cryptocurrencies that serve a particular purpose beyond just being a currency. Steem may or may not survive in the long run but I don't think anyone is being misled about anything.