A lot of coins were sold from the 'steemit' so-called ninjamine account at much higher prices. Those funds are supposed to be used to support and grow the business. Even at devalued prices the coins still in that account have a theoretical value of something like $20 million (though a large portion of it, not all, is supposed to be given away to fund new user accounts). I have no visibility on whether that money will be used for advertising but it potentially could be.

I could not agree with you more on the beta tag being little more than lame excuse for anything that goes wrong or disappoints. It should have been removed long ago, probably July 4 when the payout system went live.