This is precisely why I believe that Steem is undervalued
I think the initial biggest problem with Steem was that it was too complicated even for blockchain enthusiasts and this resulted in it being labelled a scam. That labelling still affects its price even today. Cryprto-newbies searching for tokens to put their money in, get scared away by any mention of scam. They don't even bother to look into the claims and just move on to the other options.
Another possibility is that blockchain enthusiasts prefer to put their money in other tokens that they cannot profitably mine. They then put their time in Steem and try to mine through content creation. This results in the slow growth in valuation. In the meantime, Steem is attracting a lot of users who will eventually attract advertisers. These advertisers will hopefully demand more and more Steem, the value of Steem will then go up and attract more content creators who will then attract more users and advertisers. Cycle of increasing valuation!