that still doesn't answer the question of how it all can influence the price of STEEM coin :)
because mainly it is dependent on peoples' trading it on Exchanges - not on the Apps and nodes :)
price increases when Demand is higher than Supply - that's trivial basics.
and not just a any demand, but an actual steady one - factual purchasing it more and more on Exchanges.
so far though it looks like STEEM is more like being dumped on those exchanges. that's usually is an obvious reason of why some crypto price drops.
(yesterday I've further elaborated on this matter here)
Demand for freedom and security which come from distributed nodes. In steem's case you have a little more utility built in.
'Apps and nodes' is a counterexample against your statement saying the community can do nothing.
Not too long ago steem was $4 at a korean exchange. I guess you can ask about your demand there? :)
Its easy to say it's 0 in a bear market, which is no different from saying that a bullrun will continue forever.