I wonder if there can be more to toki pona than a linguistic exercise.
For there to be, I believe it has to be integrated into a spoken community, family and friends. But family and friends largely already speak a common language. In some cases tp may be helpful as a international language, but that almost necessarily cuts back on the quantity of actual spoken conversations. Why would anyone but language buffs learn to speak it?
Perhaps the next largest need for a new language is the range of cryptolects or cants. Subcultures often develop them from mispronunciations, inclusions, etc in order to have a secret code against the dominant culture. But I doubt many people who learn tp really feel that need - or if they do, they probably already have a working cryptolect.
But nuclear families are the ultimate subculture. Even among the (eg) gay albino bahamian catholic jewel thieves of Minnesota, your actual offspring are probably more precious to you than your brothers and sisters of the Faith and Trade. So toki pona should be your secret language.
You should speak it while shopping, to tell your kid to go get the cat food. You should speak it at the bank to tell your husband to take out money for the movies. You should speak it in the yard to tell your family that it's time for dinner. You should speak it while waiting at the Post Office, to wonder what that woman was thinking when she put on that spandex to go out in public.
To me, as a newcomer, toki pona immediately seemed like a language of sharing food, working with friends and coming home to family. Unless we use it that way, it is a language or a hobby?