I agree with your assessment, and here's why: Any currency, standard or crypto, needs to be based on something of value. In the case of the U$D, since 1971 it's been based on the nebulous "good faith and credit" of the US. Increasingly, not much there to sink your teeth into.

Bitcoin is backed by 'mining', but I have yet to understand exactly what's being mined, and why whatever it is should be considered of any real value.

Ethereum is backed by its potential as an application platform. With a lot of corporate interest (and buy-in) in just such a usage, that would seem to hold promise of future value.

Steem, via Steemit, is backed by a known commodity of value -- content creation. If one doubts the 'value' of content, look no further than Facebook or YouTube -- both being wildly successful social sites which depend entirely on lots of eyeballs hitting the pages and posting, thus keeping the eyeballs where Zuckerberg wants them. It's been said in web design circles for years, "Content is king."

IOW, to my mind Steemit is potentially a Facebook killer, and that definitely appeals to me personally, and thus this site holds a good deal of intrinsic (and potential) value. Steemit can used by creative people, leveraged, and can grow into the new social platform of choice (especially among liberty-minded people who appreciate the decentralized nature of the platform), assuming it doesn't derail. I'm betting it does not.