I think that having social influence on a social platform is a major reason that one might have demand for steem. It's partially a reason I'd like more steem tbh. This is a community filled with real people (mostly) who have real opinions and can give real feedback/assistance. Not only can I share my ideas/thoughts/feelings/etc here, I can potentially get paid for doing so. In addition to being able to get paid, I also have the ability to pay. This means I can contribute not only intellectually, from online, but now also financially in a direct way.
That's just one way you can perceive value for steem too. There are countless ways! :)
I stated this in my other comment, but even just looking at steem like an advertising platform, you're paying to promote your product (Which in some cases may be yourself.) and the potential for others to see it is great when you have enough stake to promote your content decently.
Ex: Say Nike buys steem to promote their products to steem users. They buy 1mil stake. Now they upvote themselves every post, to get themselves onto trending/hot/whatever. Their incentive to buy was to get the exposure with their ads. Now, Adidas wants a piece of the action, they want to be higher up than Nike though. They buy 2 mil steem and begin to self-vote their ads. Going much higher than Nike. Now Nike wants to respond to that, they buy another 3 Mil so they are double what Adidas is. The cycle continues.
This is obviously a far-off example (Possibly a fever daydream, who knows. lol), but that is another way to look at this. There are a lot of very real people on steem and anywhere there is a gathering of people, there is potential to market products. This is also an example where steem has been adopted to a level where Nike and Adidas and the likes, are even concerned about having a spot in the community's space.
Even without that being the climate of things, my point is, the demand behind steem is varying and to each person/company/etc it will have different perceived value. The demand that is presumed by most IS there, it's just most people aren't exactly sure as to why other people would want steem.
Why do you want steem?
What's it's perceived value for you?
Personally, I think for me it starts with exactly what I started with. The ability to share my ideas/thoughts/music taste/experiences/etc with other people and to be able to have more people see it. That is incentive for me to buy more. Then there's things like Steem Monsters and such, that are directly aligned with steem, that give it added value (to me). I don't think steem would even be around today, if massive amounts of people didn't see massive value in it. Some may not be able to exactly explain why they see value in it or where that value comes from, but the point is, they are still here, they are still posting, they are still participating.
We don't always have to know exactly why something has value, to know that it does. :)
The value of things is an agreement between humans.
Although neuroscience is now used to deceive and make people believe in the value of things.
But many of us enter steemit because of the global crisis in the world because of monetary survival.
There was a time when the biggest steemit traffic was in poor countries like Venezuela. I saw it once online
Therein lies another great purpose of steem, then. :) The ability for it to lift up those who don't have the best situations in life. I'm glad that it has been able to help in some way, that is the power behind this!
Also, I am sorry that countries like Venezuela even have to deal with those conditions. Another way steem can be used would be like charities. A way to give back to the people of other countries who need it, but on a more personal and direct level. This could be great for ensuring the people who need help are getting it.
Also, @soy-venezuelien made another great point. There is the ability to transfer value to anywhere in the world. :) From anywhere else. That ability is incredible as well. Currency becoming digital and able to reach places that other currencies can't or can but are taxed insanely/etc... this may not differ from other currencies, but think about how fast you can transfer steem compared to bitcoin. It's insane to even think they can be compared. I've never had bitcoin reach my wallet instantaneously. Well, not for a long ass time now. ;) Also, there are no fees with steem. If I send 1 steem, you get 1 steem. If I sent you a whole bitcoin, you wouldn't get a whole one after fees. The fees for steem are paid out in much better methods, directly to witnesses from the reward pool. (I think? Still new to steem.) As far as a payment processing system goes, nothing can really compete with steem. I can drop cash into a bank account and it'll still take a couple minutes to go through. Turn that into a check and you're looking at at least half a day for most banks, closer to a whole one, maybe two. None of those issues exist within steem.
Also, why is gold worth what it's worth? Limited Supply. Same concept applies here to steem. There is a limited amount. That's how things are. That means only a certain number of people can hold a certain amount and that's it. This provides scarcity and where there is demand and scarcity, there is value increase.
I'm not sure how anyone who understands basic economics could doubt the future of steem. You've seen where it's been when the market was in ideal conditions. Where do you think it will be when conditions become ideal again? Do you think there's potential to go even further? How many more people are part of steem now compared to then? How many of the old users continue to post? To comment? To vote? I think there are many people doubting the future of steem simply because of the low prices currently.
Would there be as many posts pointing out possible negative outcomes, if steem were currently trading at $1? As opposed to $0.18-0.20?
I believe that for steem to have stayed above 15 cents since I have invested into it, is incredible. What this means to me is that there are enough people buying to counter how many people are selling and keep it fairly stable for a while now. Yes, things are low, but if we have the ability to counter the selling off with buying in a market this down... think about the snapback that will have when the markets all recover. Like a rubber band, we are pulling and tugging as the band stretches to lower lows than have been seen in a while. Then, when resistance gives and the markets recover, we snap back. The more we've pulled on this rubber band, the more potential energy we've collected. Maybe I'm fantasizing again, but looking at the charts, I see steem at the very least popping back up to 60-80 cents. That may not be as good for others as it is for me... but I'm sure it would make everyone feel a lot better for it to recover to that level. I just see higher highs, that's all. :)
Sure, I may not have traded steem prior to recently on any markets, but I believe it has the same potential as any other market, to act as those markets have. This means large recoveries for those who are down and massive profits for those who bought in at the low lows. Keep your hope up folks, it'll get much better. I feel it.
I agree, visibility is the value of STEEM. This, in my opinion, is why the demonization of bidbot services and self-voting is a huge mistake. Self promotion is the killer app for Steem. Isn't that really the killer application for all social media? So, maybe its unwise for us to be so anti-self promotion.