I used to think that Steem is not for everyone as I wasn't getting any upvotes and money in the beginning.But I was still blogging in this platform as I had no job.Then,I found the discord community 'PAL'.I got to learn about how everything works in Steem and everything changed.
I won't say that Steem is a life changer for everyone.But if someone is serious about it and works hard here,then it definitely can change some people's life.It is what I believe.Beside there are also a lot of passive benefits of using Steemit like you have said.I came to learn about blockchain,cryptocurrency and Dapp etc. from Steemit.I had almost no idea about these things before.
So I think spending time in Steemit is way better than spending time in facebook,twitter or watching some funny YouTube videos.