I have all the same concerns you stated in the article regarding the future price of Steem. I also think it's possible that Steem could carve out an ecosystem for itself amongst social media users if the identity is more defined...thats generally easy to discern from the content here.
The benefit of this network and the SMT platform is obvious but we'll see how the user acquisition traction maintains.
Any metrics behind that last chart? or just wishful thinking? ✌️