I see Steem as a currency. Seems dumb but that's what it is.
We have a problem today, which is that central banks control the inflation and the interest rates. This destabilizes economies, creates boom and bust cycles, enriches the rich which know about those cycles and constantly makes the big majority of the population poorer.
Bitcoin came with an amazing solution which is decentralized money over which no one has control, and with predetermined decreasing inflation. This is sound money and will be great for economies, trade, freedom etc...
Steem is another solution. It says, that instead of eliminating inflation maybe we can really use it in a good way (this is also what governments claim but they fail miserably). However, steem uses inflation to reward active users on the network. Those who provide value. If you produce content and people enjoy it, then more of this inflation is coming to you. This is the Proof of Brain algorithm.
Right now we have a problem, delegating to bidbots gives you a bigger slice of the inflation than being a good active user. But this will be solved. 50/50 curation, i think, may be a great step. Also, removing self-upvotes or votes between accounts owned by the same person. This of course can be gamed but it will also be easy to track who is constantly upvoting spam content to profit, because it's a blockchain. We can then downvote them.
The point is: if there exists a proof of brain algorithm, that gives the right economic and social incentives to the users, then we might create the best currency in the world. It would be a currency that encourages people to create value for others, via content, businesses, ideas or whatever.
Now the good news is that we don't even need a perfect Proof of Brain algorithm. right now, the algorithm is extremely bad. Everyone should self upvote and delegate to bidbots. But Steem has users, content creators, entrepreneurs, witnesses that produce amazing work.
So imagine what would happen with an average algorithm.
What would happen with a great one?
I believe that with many years and SMTs we will be able to find a good way to align the correct incentives. I also think that different people have different values, which is why many currencies, each one with a different algorithm will exist. That is why steem is a genius idea, every account using SMTs increases the value of the Steem token.