Well in either case I doubt the reason that they're not using or investing in STEEM is because of the posting reward / curation algorithms and I don't think any amount of messing with those algorithms will get them to start. If we get a whole bunch of cool, well funded apps on the platform and show serious growth and potential and make sure everyone knows about it, the price will start to follow, and that will get more attention and attract more people and development and it will continue from there.
We can't just tell people that Steem will be great, because they've heard that before and it hasn't panned out, so now we have to actually make it happen.