There needs to be more of a reason for wanting to own STEEM and SBD. Right now for most contributors the desire for STEEM is to turn it into another currency that they can use, BTC or BTC --> whatever local currency they use.
Recently, I've seen posts for getting paid in STEEM and SBD for things off the site via a web button thing, I think it also allows you to accept it at a point of sale. It's also very new and hasn't had much time to effect the price of STEEM. I think the more widespread uses like that there are the higher STEEM will go. STEEM itself is also quite new and hasn't really reached the mainstream.
It has all of the advantages of a cryptocurrency, low/no fees etc. Let's get some offsite wallets/wallet support for STEEM and it could start to take off.
@mweich all very interesting points you make! What is the benefit though in paying with Steem?
If you can use STEEM directly, you don't have to sell it first.
It'd cut at least the steps of buying bitcoin, selling that for fiat, then finally buying whatever good or service you wanted in the first place. Other than that, it'd be just like using bitcoin.