Buying and post-boosting via upvote bots is a fairly recent activity frowned upon by the majority of community members. So its safe to say that that's not what gives steem its value.
STEEM is still the currency of the platform. GPT is just a currency to ensure that users who follow socially acceptable behaviour eventually earn more STEEM.
Steem got its value from tether and upbit. Users of steemit have little to do with the price.
"Socially acceptable behavior" rightly scares the heck out of conservatives ...which make up a good portion of the platform membership. I am guessing this could be a huge train wreck if handled in a P.C. way.