I think some of this is natural evolution. There will always be a number of early adopters whose primary objective is short term gain. Outside crypto world, they buy IPOs and dump them three weeks later. Their "investments" aren't really predicated on value and performance, but short term price spikes.
Longer term investors (I believe) are more value oriented; they invest in things based on "this seems like a really brilliant idea" and a prepared to hold for much longer period. But that puts the onus back on us to "have something worth investing in."
The social blogging platform is a really good start because it fills a niche nobody currently owns (between Facebook and WordPress), with the added attraction that contributions earns stake in the platform... wrote a lengthy piece about that, last night.
In terms of functionality and utility, I see the platform being a really good basis for a true peer-to-peer marketplace based on Steem/cryptocurrencies... a combination of eBay & Etsy & music; doing the best of what these sites were before they went all "big corporate." Take PeerHub as a basis, and "pump it full of steriods" and you have something... take out a minimal transaction fee (2%? 3%? eBay and Etsy currently cost you about 10%) and pump that back into the system as liquidity. If traders additionally accept BTC and USD, Steem would have additional "value backing."
I was also thinking of the idea of creating an attractive base for charities/non-profit organization who could receive donations directly from their supporters who might create supportive content and give up their rewards. Again, for a much smaller fee than similar external platforms offer... and yet, there's a commercial "fee" that can be collected as the actual financial underpinnings for the system.
I'm thinking of this because there's always the issue that the system currently "gives away" Steem for content... there needs to be something more sustainable for long term attractiveness and viability.