The Steem Blockchain's greatest strength is that people can get paid for some effort they put in.
I can't think of any other system or platform out there that offers the same sort of opportunities for effort vs payout. We shouldn't be trying to compete with Reddit, Facebook and Instagram because people don't use those services to make money. Some do, of course, but the effort they need to put in to get anything out of it is huge. Same with YouTube. I've had some videos get a big amount of views, and it's still just a fraction of what I've potentially made with dtube.
Even services like Fiverr, it's really hard to make money... the top whatever % do, and then everyone else gets copyright striked and Fiverr kills their gigs. With Patreon, you already needed to have put in the hours to build up your social standing in order to make anything.
So, the reason we're all here is because we feel we can make the most with the least amount of effort and opportunity.... and because there are many of us, this creates an ecosystem that businesses might be interested in. Active Steemians can be paid to put in effort to create content for businesses... whether it's content for businesses like Steemhunt, creating SEO links for CoinGecko via articles published or eyes on pages for Steemmonsters.
The payouts bring the Steemians, and the active Steemians are the product.