Everyone has a bias for something and I don't see a problem in trying to introduce people, friends and family into projects you believe in! I don't know about the really early days of Steem but these days there's no shame in promotion Steem, we have a good amount of active users that will surely keep growing, especially when HF20 comes and we get easier account creations, not only that, we have over 50 projects been built and worked on in the blockchain with many more on the way....

I would dare say that we have more value that certain projects that are ahead of us on market cap... but the free market is the free market and we can actually take advantage of the lower prices since we can stack more before everyone sees the potencial of Steem.