How about
the blockchain without projects is nothing
Steem only survived & brought in new users, because people built other projects on top of it (SteemMonsters, DTube, Dlive, etc.) I guess Justin truly thinks those are worthless, because many Witnesses built apps & projects themselves, Witnesses who he seems to consider malicious.
The biggest one, besides Steemit, has been Splinterlands/SteemMonsters, and that didn't use a single penny from any SPS or Steemit ninja-mined stake. Projects are great and they help us thrive, but without a community to use any projects, projects are worthless.
And among many good projects, lets not forget bid bods that made a lot of real users go away.