Steemit is just one part of the Steem economy. There's much more happening and much more to come. For example, Utopian.io is a platform rewarding open source contributions and is powered, rather heavily supported, by Steemit Inc.
Background picture is from my personal travel photographs
Just the Utopian.io is an economy in itself. When I started writing this post, I did not know Utopian.io proudly calles itself an open source economy; the emphasis of my post has already been amplified.
Let's look at what kind of contributions Utopian.io wants from open source contributors.
Can you see the variety of jobs that Utopian.io creates? If you're a programmer, graphic designer, cyber security expert, translator or you can do any of the listed things, you will surely be paid for any accepted contribution.
Some people who are benefitting from the benevolence of Steem economy are:-
Bloggers
Poeple who have something to share, be it anything ranging from personal notes to expert opinions on important matters, are doing great on Steemit, earning cryptocurrency in the process. At current SBD rates, established bloggers are earning hundreds of dollars of value on each post.
Investors
Steem is a cryptocurrency and SBD is a tradable token as well. Investors who have bought Steem at $0.55 (yes, it went that down in July) or a recent dip under $0.90 are sitting at nice profits. People who bought SBD under $1 have had ball of a time lately.
Artists / Photographers / YouTubers
Steemit, and now Dtube as well, has become a platform where artists are meeting other artists, YouTubers are coming together and putting up shows on Dtube as well as sharing their YouTube videos, and photographers are sharing their unique captures. All of them earn.
Content Curators
Producing content is one thing. Curating content is rewarded as well. Curation teams like 
Freelancers
Steemgigs is a phenomenon now. We have a witness account named 
There are variety of jobs that can be done for a few Steems or SBD right here on the platform. 
Voting Bots
A dysfunctional Steemit promotion system means voting bots are filling a gap. How profitable the bots are is known only to the owners who have to arrange delegation to bot accounts. However, if a business is running, it is profitable. Otherwise it would have closed.
Conclusion
There are more facets of Steem economy too. A lot more than the ones mentioned in this post. Let's discuss more in the comments. I leave it to you to bring out each and every economy facet that Steem has created.